


I'll Be Seeing You

by Snap_crackle_spock



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Every other character is decoration, F/M, I cannot stress enough how much they are the main characters, THIS IS ABOUT AHSOKA AND ANAKIN!, post-canon(ish), tags will be updated as we go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 34,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21890335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snap_crackle_spock/pseuds/Snap_crackle_spock
Summary: He looks at the stars that aren’t in the same pattern as the one he saw earlier that night, or any others he remembers seeing before, and as he drifts off he thinks about some other life.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Padmé Amidala & Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 56
Kudos: 116





	1. The Only Thing Worth Doing in a Small Town is Leaving

**Author's Note:**

> This takes HEAVY inspiration from "Alien Sex Fiend" by Glossolalia. If you want a better version of this same story but with more 80's and a different fandom, you should probably read that instead. 
> 
> -
> 
> Also this is saved in my Google Docs as "he was a sk8r boi, she said see you l8r boi."

Anakin was looking at the stars. More and more often he found himself turning to them for guidance, though what he was hoping to learn was anybody’s guess. A sign that he was doing something wrong? That everything was fine? Some hint to what his future was holding, or some message of his past that was getting clouded by his personal context? Your guess was as good as his. 

The stars had never responded, he'd be surprised if they did, but turning to them was always easier than turning to someone else. They presented an unbiased opinion and open void instead of bringing their own personal opinions into the matter. A place for him to vent and then pin his problems on when they didn't give him the answer that he wanted. Like a journal, he supposed, but one that his (as Padme would call it) fragile sense of masculinity would allow him to use. 

On that particular night, he was lying on the hood of his car, blanket between the hard metal and his skin. Well, not _his_ car. _His_ car was the one that was currently living in his garage with two tires missing and an engine that wouldn't turn. His car was the project he'd been working on for the past year and he promised himself that it would be done by graduation because it was either driving that or walking to God knows where. And he'd prefer to drive.

The car he was currently lying down on was the one he shared with his mom, who didn't have a shift that night so he got to use it. It was nothing to write home about because it was very much a car that any teenage boy would share with his mom, but it did have a good hood. A hood that had seen many other late-night adventures where he drove to the same parking lot to look at the same stars with Ahsoka laying on the hood next to him, just as she was now. In the minimal lighting of the one fluorescent street lamp about 20 spaces over, he could only just make out her angular, white tattoos as they crisscrossed her arms. Where he had his car to turn to, she had a bottle of white India ink and a safety pin that she routinely used to add to the design. She'd told him once that when she turned 18 and could actually get someone to do a piece professionally, she was going to get a massive green, gold, and white owl on her back. When he'd asked her why she'd told him that it had come to her in a dream where she was dying and revived her. She'd called it a good omen and a lucky charm, before painting the thing on a piece of cardboard and hanging it up in his car with a piece of dental floss. If his mom saw it while she drove to work she'd never said anything.

Without having to look over, he knew that she was just as absorbed in the sky as he was. They’d always been telepathic that way. 

Distantly, in a sort of out-of-body way, he could hear a car go by on the road they’d turned off of to get to this small escape, gone as just as fast as it had come. It was only the third one he’d heard in the past 30 minutes. Maybe hour. It was one of those nights where time had started to slip by without a chance for him to grasp onto it. It could be 10:30 or 4 A.M. They were both the same to him. 

He'd most invited Padme and Ben on the excursion. Well, that wasn't exactly how it happened. That implies that he'd thought about it, given it some real contemplation, and then not texted either of them asking if they wanted to come sit in silence on the hood of his car in the dead of night. A more realistic version was that, when she got into his car that evening, Ahsoka had asked if they were picking up the other two on the way, and he’d absently considered veering off course to stop by their houses. They lived close enough to each other, after all, in the kind of nicer neighborhood with the kind of nicer neighbors and the definitely nicer middle schools. (Not that that mattered, or anything. They were all at the same high school, now. They had ended up together in the end.)

Well, maybe not _this_ particular end, as he’d decidedly _not_ picked them up, but you get the idea.

Sometimes, staring into space and wishing you were one of the stars was an experience that other people couldn’t quite comprehend. After all, for someone who was always better at seeing the big picture than Anakin, Ben could never zoom out quite that much. And Padme… well, she’d always been better at the up-close than any of them. Always there to notice the small things that would slip by the rest. Dot the I’s, cross the T’s, text someone after school to ask them why they were a bit quieter than usual, and all the other good things. 

So it was just Ahsoka and Anakin for that adventure, and sometimes that was for the best. Their group was multi-faceted, an excellent exhibit of a well-balanced structure with each combination suited for different tasks. For diplomacy, Padme and Ben; for tactical maneuvers, Ben and Anakin; and for looking for guidance from the stars, Ahsoka, Anakin, and the $20 worth of snack foods they’d picked up from the 7-11 on the way. That was a reoccurring combination, Anakin had begun to notice. Sometimes with gas money. Sometimes they didn't even need that.

“You ever think about what else is up there, Sky Guy?” Ahsoka asked, digging her hand into the bag of chips between the two of them and breaking the silence deafeningly. At that moment all he could think about was that she'd ended up crashing into his life. It was one of those situations where he knew that, sure, he and Ben were two sides of the same coin, but he and Ahsoka were cut from the same cloth. 

“All the time,” he replied on instinct, his eyes not coming off of the lights that were already dying and dead as they reached the two of them, “sometimes I wonder if it’s better than what’s down here.”

After a second of silence, she let out a sharp laugh and cried, "bullshit.”

“I don’t know,” he sighed, though at this point it was more to play along with the bit than anything real, “I think it’s just that anything is better than down here.”

“God, you’re annoying sometimes,” she sat up, and as she looked at him through the darkness, she continued, “you're a lot of things, Sky Guy, but poetic sure as hell isn't one of them.” 

“You’re really mean sometimes, you know that Snips?”

“Better than being a pretentious asshole waxing poetic about space.”

“We were reading Dickinson in lit today. Must’ve rubbed off.”

“I think you’re just doing it to avoid talking about your real problems,” she said, reaching out an expectant hand for him to give her their second Arizona.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied (and she knew it) as he sat up and passed her the can. Truth be told, though, he didn't know exactly what she was talking about. He'd been in a bit of a mood that week, though with no real cause that he could come up with. Something had just felt off. 

“You’re a creature of habit,” she hummed sagely as she took a sip, “you always want to skate if you’re bored, work on your stupid car if you’re angry, and look at the stars if you have a problem. Stop acting like we don’t have the same brain.”

“You never want to work on my car.”

“Okay, we have _one_ difference in the process. You’re avoiding the question.”

“You never asked me a question.”

“That's actually a lie, but I'll let it slide the one time because I know _you_ know what I mean.” She gently nudged his knee, readjusting the hoodie hanging off her shoulders, which he didn’t think she had owned at the beginning of the day, and he could tell that this was her caring. They'd never been the most touchy-feely of the group (that was a title strictly held by the combination of Anakin and Padme), but when the two of them were together, this was how they cared. Dancing around the problem but showing the more important emotions when they mattered. Anakin knew that this was the time to open up and just talk. 

“Who’s the hoodie from?”

“Anakin-"

“Now you’re avoiding the questions!”

“Stop it." She had that look in her eye, the same kind she got when she was rightfully pissed, like when people talked over her or when Anakin would hold things out of her reach just to watch her jump, or when some guy would make a comment about the cut of her shirt. Anakin stopped it. 

“Nothing,” he rolled his eyes and conceded, flopping back down onto the blanket, “maybe that’s the problem. Nothing’s wrong. Doesn’t seem right.”

“Oh, poor Anakin,” Ahsoka lamented, putting on an award-worthy performance for her audience of one, “your problems are so hard, right?" When he didn't say anything she kept going, hopping off of the hood to ramp herself up more, "Your life is _too_ good," she placed the back of her hand on her head, and he could see the spotlight she was imagining hitting her, illuminating her halo of white hair, "and I'm sure your girlfriend probably cares about you _too_ much," she was doing that thing to her voice that made it immensely clear that she was _making fun of you, headass,_ but there was something a little bit rougher on the edge that kept growing as she continued, "and I bet that road’s looking _too_ open and free for when you skip town at the end of the year, huh?” and there it was. The grand finale. The problem. 

He moved to get up and go towards her, but the second he started she pushed herself out of it, coming back to sit on the hood of the car and drawing her knees up to her chest, the Arizona can hanging loosely from her grip between her legs. 

He knew what she was talking about, because, again, he knew her, but he didn’t think it had been affecting her this much. Unlike Padme or Ben, who’d already been accepted into all of their top choice colleges and were just waiting to see who wanted to give them the most money, or Ahsoka who was still a junior and had another year until she went through the same thing, that had never been the plan for Anakin. Leaving right after graduation with nothing but his car, his savings, and whatever clothes fit in his trunk was always the plan. Always. Before he knew any of them. Before he could even remember. He'd never not had that plan. 

It wasn't that he never wanted to see any of is friends or family again (that was _not_ the plan), but like she'd said: he was a creature of habit. He wasn't huge on change. It was never not the plan. 

Times like this made him stop to think about it, though. 

“Snips-” he tried, using the familiar nickname that was a testament to their friendship, which had been forged through three years of shitty engineering teachers and other midnight adventures like the one they were currently embarked on. He needed her to understand that, too.

“Forget it,” she mumbled, and even in the dark, he could see the process of her trying to release her emotions into the universe. It was one of those things that Ben was a practiced student of, like following the rules and being shit at Mario Kart. And, though Ahsoka hadn’t picked up either of those habits, this was one she seemed to cling to. Whenever something too big to handle happened, she would breathe it in, accept its presence, and then let it go. He had no idea how she did it. Anakin had tried for a while to follow the same steps, and after losing his patience over and over, stopped. 

It always felt better to feel things for more than two seconds, and he’d never been clear on how Ben was so good at not seeing that. 

“ _Ahsoka,”_ he tried again, and something about the pressure he puts on the name feels weirdly familiar. He watches her stall in front of him, and she looks like she doesn’t want to turn around when she does. She looks unhappy. It hurts to see, “I’m sorry,” he says on instinct, though he doesn’t know if he’s apologizing for raising his voice or leaving. He doesn’t know which he feels worse about. 

“I know,” she says after a breath, and he knows she means it. He wishes there was more he could do. She tries to lighten the mood after another awkward second, throwing out, “Hey, it’s not your fault that the only thing worth doing in this town is leaving it.”

“It’s not like I’m dying,” he tries, “I’m gonna come and visit- plus my mom wants me home for every major holiday- and, I mean, to see Padme and Ben when they’re home-" when he looks at her and sees that it's clearly not working, he just says, "I’m not leaving forever.”

“Yes, you are,” she mutters again, “it’s what I would do. Like I said, one and the same.”

* * *

When Anakin goes to bed that night, after dropping Ahsoka off and making a point to promise to see her tomorrow, he looks at the stars again. Not the same ones, but the ones that his mom had helped him put up the week after his dad had left. He’d been afraid of the dark back then. 

He looks at the stars that aren’t in the same pattern as the one he saw earlier that night, or any others he remembers seeing before, and as he drifts off he thinks about some other life, some other time, where the roles are reversed and he has to watch Ahsoka leave and he thinks about how much that would undo him.


	2. I've Been Here Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long time ago, Ahsoka Tano decided that it was within her to beat up anyone. Not that she would, she would never be one of those people who just started picking fights for the hell of it, but in her heart, she knew that she was capable of holding her own against anyone. This included: the guys who stared at her while she was at the gym, the seniors in her engineering class that thought they knew better than her just because they were older, the kid on Padme’s Model United Nations team that had undermined their peace treaty with Norway, and Anakin. Especially Anakin. 
> 
> Which worked out, because sometimes horsing around is the only real way to show affection to your best friend. 
> 
> It also helped that both of them really liked boxing. 

A long time ago, Ahsoka Tano decided that it was within her to beat up anyone. Not that she would, she would never be one of those people who just started picking fights for the hell of it, but in her heart, she knew that she was capable of holding her own against anyone. This included: the guys who stared at her while she was at the gym, the seniors in her engineering class that thought they knew better than her just because they were older, the kid on Padme’s Model United Nations team that had undermined their peace treaty with Norway, and Anakin.  _ Especially _ Anakin. 

Which worked out, because sometimes horsing around is the only real way to show affection to your best friend. 

It also helped that both of them really liked boxing. 

After the awkwardness that was the car ride home after she’d let her emotions get the better of her during their semi-regular star-gazing session, and then after hearing Anakin promise  _ again _ and  _ again _ that they were going to hang out the next day and listening to him try so hard to make it not weird, a chance to punch something was a welcome change of pace. 

The fact that the gym that they went to only had gloves that smelled like feet wasn’t an issue, neither was the terrible workout music that was being blasted through the speaker system. For a second, she could even forget the guy she’d heard blow a low whistle when she bent over to get her water bottle. 

Because this was her element.

She didn’t know why; what past life she’d lived that made her feel at peace when she was winding up to land a blow, but the only other times she was that focused –that centered– was when she was midair, defying gravity on her skateboard or sat on her basement floor at 3 A.M., a flashlight held between her teeth so she didn’t wake up her dad, and a needle dipped in ink waiting to pierce her skin. 

She threw a punch, which Anakin caught with the mitts and promptly pushed away so she could pull back again. 

“You’re leaving your left hand too low,” he commented, moving the mitt to casually point out where her hand should’ve been. She knocked it away.

It felt familiar. Right.

“You never did say who that hoodie was from,” Anakin commented, lifting his right arm for her to hit before swiping and having her duck, “who’s the lucky person?”

Lux Bonteri, who was in her U.S. History class and who had taken her to a drive-in movie (Raiders of the Lost Arc and Temple of Doom double feature) last Friday, but that was neither here nor there. 

For all the time she spent helping Anakin with his love life (and fucking Christ was it a lot of time, between the covering for him when he snuck out of class to see Padme or being the  _ best _ wingman and letting him stand on her shoulders just so he could get to her second-story window) she didn’t like bringing up her own. It felt off-limits, in a way that nothing between them ever was. 

Even Ben mentioned his relationship (situationship was probably a better term for it) with Satine, one of Padme’s friends, from time to time, but this subject was never one that Ahsoka liked to dwell on when it came to herself. Sure, they would tease each other constantly, but these sorts of things never felt relevant where she was concerned. 

She turned do deliver a kick, which he easily caught and pushed her off balance for. She was off her rhythm today, telegraphing blows and not staying centered. It was sloppy. It wasn’t her. Usually, between the two of them, Anakin was the one whose hits you could see coming a mile away. That didn’t mean that they didn’t land, but they were never exactly subtle. Anakin was never one for subtlety. 

As she took a second to catch her breath while on the spring floor, Anakin took his hand out of one of the mitts to reach to her, and as she went to take it, a sharp pain pierced her forehead.

_ You’re getting better at dual-wielding, Snips.  _

_ Jealous?  _

_ Hardly. I find that two hands can strike a more definitive blow than one. _

_ Always one to lean into brute strength. Tell me, Master, where’s the finesse? _

_ Ask me again when after this round, when you get outmaneuvered yet again. _

It all happens so fast, that Ahsoka barely has time to register it before she’s being pulled onto her feet. 

As she straightens herself out, she peers at Anakin and it feels… wrong somehow. For a moment he doesn’t seem like someone she actually knows. He’s younger than she remembers, brighter. It feels like she’s looking at a distorted reflection of her friend. 

But before she can hover more on this train of thought, the idea’s passed and suddenly there’s nothing wrong with what she’s seeing. He looks the same as she’d always seen him, if a bit confused at her sudden lapse of silence. 

“Snips?” He asks, and the name that is usually a reminder of how far they’ve come in their friendship and all they’d been through together now only serves to conjure a looming ghost of the memory she’d just experienced. That must be what it is; a memory. It must’ve just been something they’d said at another day at the gym like this one, nothing wrong. 

The more she thought about it, the more she decided it made sense. 

“Ahsoka,” he says again, and this time she can feel the gravity in the word, compelling her to immediately turn to face him, “you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

It takes a split second for her to make a decision, and she jumps right back into her usual self. 

“Who are you, my grandma? Who even talks like that anymore?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that? A plot? In MY Clone Wars Alternate Universe?
> 
> More likely than you think.


	3. I want to find the answers to the questions that I still don't know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before he could stop her she was diving for her phone, and he quickly reached to grab it before she could punch in her passcode.
> 
> “No! I don’t want to call him! He’s just going to be judgemental about the whole thing–”
> 
> “Anakin, he’s our only hope and you know it–”
> 
> “Ahsoka we are not calling Ben!”

Anakin was far out of his element. And, from the looks of the disaster that she’d created in his room, Ahsoka was, too. 

Whenever his room was messy, his mom could always be counted on to say classic parental zingers like  _ Anakin I can’t see the floor _ or  _ how to you find anything in here? _ or, his personal favorite,  _ Ani, it looks like a tornado came through here.  _

He’d never really understood what that last one meant until he saw this. 

On his bed, almost every article of clothing he owned stacked into a precarious mountain, with the top layer slowly crumbling off and falling to the floor. There, it met the rest of his clothing, the ones that Ahsoka had already deemed unacceptable, as well as the four pairs of shoes he owned and other miscellaneous items from his closet. 

Padme had invited him over for dinner at her house that night. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal, except that it was very much a big deal because this was the first time he was going to meet her parents officially. He’d seen them in brief instances before, like when he’d pick her up or if he was at one of her extra-curricular events, but never had a sit-down ordeal with them. 

He’d thought Ahsoka would be the person to call up when it came to picking out an outfit for the occasion, she at least seemed like she knew the bare minimum of fashion, but this was decidedly  _ not _ the case. 

“Well, it says here that you’re supposed to wear a button-up, trousers, shoes, and a hat,” she said, looking at her phone screen at what he assumed was the first thing that had come up when she Googled  _ what to wear when meeting your girlfriend’s family. _

“I’m not wearing a hat to dinner.”

“You’re going to disobey the internet?” she teased, tossing her phone onto his bed where it would surely be buried under the tipping pile of flannels about to rain down upon it. 

“Ahsoka,” he turned to her, grabbing her shoulders in a desperate attempt to show the urgency, “ _ please _ take this at least a little seriously? I’m kind of freaking out over here.”

It seemed to click because she gave him a strange look –the same strange look it felt like she’d been giving him all week, the kind that made her look like she was going through an intense lapse of deja vu– before she playfully punched his shoulder and rolled her eyes. 

“ _ Clearly _ ,” she snickered, “I can feel your worry from over here, Skyguy. But,” she looked at him with a mocking glare and he suddenly got a very bad feeling about whatever she was about to say, “I don’t know anything about what classy guys wear and you  _ definitely _ don’t know anything about what classy guys wear, so I’m under the impression that we’re going to have to call for reinforcements.”

Before he could stop her she was diving for her phone, and he quickly reached to grab it before she could punch in her passcode.

“No! I don’t want to call him! He’s just going to be judgemental about the whole thing–”

“Anakin, he’s our only hope and you know it–”

“Ahsoka we are not calling Ben!”

* * *

“Well this is a disaster,” Ben Kenobi said as he gazed out across the destruction that had apparently taken place in Anakin’s room. As Anakin crossed his arms and shot Ahsoka a disapproving look behind Ben’s back, she just deflected it with an enthusiastic thumbs up followed by a double feature of her middle fingers. 

“It’s only because Ahsoka pulled out everything I own so she could go through it and then not be helpful,” Anakin said, sticking his tongue out at her, and she quickly mirrored the image. Of course, they stopped when they both looked up and saw Ben turned around with his arms crossed, the ever-exasperated parental figure of their trio. 

“Are you done?” He asked, the dry humor dripping from his voice. 

“Listen, Ben, can you please just help him?” Ahsoka asked, gesturing to the chaos in front of them, “his stupid dinner is in like two hours and all we know is that Google said ‘business casual’ was the goal.”

“Well, that’s why you never trust what a computer tells you,” Ben chuckled, finding the humor where Ahsoka and Anakin clearly couldn’t, “did Padme say where you guys were going to eat?”

“Her dad’s cooking,” Anakin replied, happy to finally have a question that he could answer. 

“Grilling or stove?” 

“Hell if I know.”

“Helpful,” Ben said snarkily. 

“ _ Guys,”  _ Ahsoka warned, though he knew that she was aware that for all their bickering the two of them would never actually be cruel to one another. 

“Alright, Ahsoka,” Ben said, turning to face her, “can you please dig around and find a white button-up shirt?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she waved her hand around, helping without a fight.

“Anakin,” Ben turned to him, “I’m  _ hoping _ you have a pair of nice slacks?” When he shook his head  _ no _ , Ben nodded reluctantly, “right, well, I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. The last time I saw you in a suit was at middle school graduation.”

“I want pictures!” Ahsoka said, popping her head up from the other side of the room. Somehow, she was already deep into one of the piles. 

“Later,” Ben laughed, “for now, try to find your nicest pants. Maybe some darker ones would be better.”

As Anakin nodded and turned to start looking, Ben snapped in realization, “and, one more thing. You’re going to have to take out the piercings.”

‘The Piercings’ were a home-done job by Ahsoka over the summer, a decision made half out of boredom and half out of the desire for change. He’d told her that she could do whatever she wanted, as long as she didn’t fuck it up, and she’d happily pierced each ear once, and then his left eyebrow. 

“Why should I? I’ve met them before. It’s not like they don’t know what I look like.”

“Anakin,” Ben said in his  _ I know much more than you _ voice that he liked to use whenever Anakin disagreed with him, “trust me. It matters.”

He looked over to Ahsoka for reassurance, only to see her nodding along to what Ben was saying. Fine, then. A room full of traitors. He could deal with that later. 

“I’ll do it but I hope you know that I’m going to complain about it the whole time,” He grumbled, reaching up to start taking it out. 

“Jesus Christ, Anakin,” Ahsoka said, rushing over, “absolutely not. Let me help you. You’ll rip it out by accident if you do it yourself.”

“Whatever,” he shrugged, not ready to admit that, no, he didn’t actually know how to take it out himself and some help would be much appreciated. 

“Ben, can you just finish deciding what he’s wearing tonight while we get this taken care of?”

“Sure thing, kids. Don’t make him bleed out all over the bathroom.”

* * *

Ahsoka had found the hairdryer. 

His mom had gotten it for him years ago, and he’d used it maybe once, but for some reason, it stayed in the cupboard underneath his sink, collecting dust. Maybe the universe had been saving it for this exact moment. 

She’d been looking for tweezers to, in her words, ‘make is eyebrows look not like  _ that _ ’, and honestly he was happy that she hadn’t found them. He was happy to take a punch or sterilized needle from her any day, but he had to draw the line somewhere and in this case, it was having his hair ripped off of his skin. 

So instead she’d decided to do his hair. 

In the background, she’d put on some easy music that he couldn’t hear the words to over the whirring of the air, but that’s not exactly what it was about. It was just about being on. 

As she hunched over where he sat on the lidded toilet, brush in one hand and machinery in the other, all he tried and failed to focus his mind. He’d never been great at impressing people and having not one but two of his friends explain dinner fashion etiquette to him wasn’t exactly doing the most to ease his nerves for tonight. He didn’t feel prepared. 

“You’re overthinking,” Ahsoka commented, doing something to his hair that involved pulling and twisting it, “it’s unlike you. Stop it.”

“I don’t know, Snips,” he mumbled, offhandedly thinking that maybe she wouldn’t even be able to hear him over the blowdryer, “what if I’m underthinking it? What if they start asking me about politics or something? I’m not ready for that.” 

“You’re so dramatic,” he could hear her eye roll. She released the tuft of hair she’d been working on, and though he couldn’t see it, it felt lighter than it had been before. “Just be yourself and all that crap. They’d be more upset if you put on a front for them now and find out later that you’d been lying the whole time.”

“But the eyebrow piercing is too much–”

“Oh, shut up. I’ll put it back in when you get home tonight.” She paused and looked at him. “Are you coming back tonight?”

He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. This wasn’t the type of thing they talked about. “I– Why wouldn’t I– They’d still be–”

“Jeez, never mind. I’ll take that as a ‘maybe’.”

“Thanks, by the way. For helping with all of this stuff. I know it’s kind of dumb.” 

“It’s not dumb,” she laughed, “it’s nice that you care so much about impressing her family. Besides, I know you’d do the same for me if I asked you to.”

“Yeah, but never do.” He leaned away from the blowdryer to stand up and she shut it off. “Why don’t you ever ask for help with your stuff? I just feel like it’s always my drama, or whatever.”

“I don’t know,” she laughed and it felt disingenuine, “it’s just not the type of thing we talk about.”

“Why do we keep saying that, though?” he wondered out loud, “I mean, when did we even decide what we do and don’t talk about?”

There was a ringing in his ears, like something was reverberating off the tile in the bathroom. He didn’t mean to get so riled up but this wave of emotion wasn’t stopping. 

“Anakin, I think you should sit down.”

“No, Ahsoka, something feels weird I think that I just need to take a breather–”

“Anakin sit down.”

* * *

Ahsoka had found the hairdryer. 

The one that his mom had given to him years ago, that he’d used maybe once, that for some reason still sat collecting dust in the cupboard under his sink, that she’d been using the first time they’d gone through this conversation. 

As he sat there, with her doing the exact same thing she’d been doing not a minute ago without showing any signs of knowing what was going on, he couldn’t focus. Again.  _ What just happened? _

“You’re overthinking,” She said, the same inflection as when she’d said it before, “it’s unlike you. Stop it.”

“Ahsoka what’s going on?” He hadn’t been sitting down a second ago. Why was he sitting? “This just happened.”

“You’re being dramatic,” she rolled her eyes, only he could see it this time. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about half the time.”

“Yes, you do! This just happened!” He stood up, and she just crossed her arms and frowned. 

“Are you doing alright, Skyguy? I know you’re nervous about meeting Padme’s parents but jeez, what’s up with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“You’re telling me this isn’t familiar to you? You didn’t  _ just _ see this?”

“Anakin, do you want to sit down while I go get Ben? You’re kind of making me nervous.”

“No, I don’t want to sit down. Stop telling me to sit down!”

“Don’t yell at me like that!” She retorted, matching his tone, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you but I’m not going to just stay here while you act like a crazy person!” She turned to go out the open door, and before Anakin knew what he was doing he reached out his and watched the door slam shut on its own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I call this one "it's all fluff and nonsense until the plot kicks in"


	4. A Walk Through Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where it gets weird.

Ahsoka Tano had had a weird day. Maybe a couple of weird days. Maybe a lot more than she was letting on. 

And they were just getting weirder.

Sometimes, she felt like she was on auto-pilot; like somebody else was steering the ship and she was just there to watch. Times like this would be helping give Anakin a blow-out before his dinner at the Amidala’s before getting hit with the hardest case of deja vu since  _ Finding Dory _ and watching a door slam shut on its own. 

Sometimes, she’d just have weird gaps in her memory where she’d forget how she got from point A to point B, like after that whole debacle when she somehow found herself lying in her bed that night, though she couldn’t come up with who’d driven her home to save her life. 

And sometimes? Sometimes things were just weird. Like her dream that night. 

She must’ve fallen asleep watching  _ Stranger Things _ , because as far as she could see was just blackness, with pitch dark water that she wasn’t sinking into spreading out across the ground and no light source in sight, though she felt like she was in one of those police interrogations where there’s only one uncovered light bulb. 

It felt like she was there, by herself, for an eternity walking aimlessly only to find she hadn’t moved an inch. To be fair, though, maybe she had. There was no way to tell.

She heard a deep breathing.

She turned around, trying to see who else was there with her, only to find more blackness staring back at her. 

The breathing continued, almost like a machine letting air out of a tire. Never breaking from its rhythm. It wasn’t loud, but somehow that made it all the more overwhelming. Without any other noise to cover it up, she was forced to hear only the breathing, straining to hear it again like it would be louder the next time. 

“Hello?” She called out. Half of her expected it to echo, or at least sound like it was bouncing off of something. It didn’t. Half of her wondered if she’d even made a noise at all. 

She felt like she was going insane. The breathing continued, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once and making the hair on her neck stand up. She fell to her knees, searching for a way to wake herself up when she caught eyes with her reflection in the black water. 

She’d read things before that would describe this moment as looking in a funhouse mirror, but that didn’t seem right. Instead, it felt like she was looking at herself in some really well done Halloween costume. 

Her tattoos seemed to continue up onto her face (making them the first and only face tattoos she’d ever seen that looked good) and seemed to entirely cover her eyebrows. Her hair looked like it was hidden under some elaborate, pointed helmet made of blue and white stripes of some material she couldn’t discern from the slightly rippling water. She looked like she was wearing some kind of armor, though it looked flexible, like the kind the Marvel superheroes wore in the movies. Maybe this was some comic book character she’d seen passingly and had burrowed itself into her subconscious? Either way, it made her feel extremely underdressed in her sweatpants and  _ Say Anything _ t-shirt from 8th grade. 

She looked herself in the eyes, and was only a little put off by the fact that the reflection didn’t seem to follow her own movements. 

“Okay,” she mumbled to herself, “definitely a dream.”

She watched her reflection mouth something that looked suspiciously close to  _ Ahsoka _ and settled her own hands with the shitty blue nail polish shining under the nonexistent fluorescent light on the surface of the water, her reflection matching the gesture. Only, her reflection took it a step further, curling her fingers forward to interlock with Ahsoka’s and  _ pulled _ , dragging Ahsoka through the dark water.

When she came out on the other side and she had time to readjust her sense of gravity, she felt dry, though. Everything around her was exactly the same, except her reflection was now sitting directly across from her, as opposed to the water below, which now was just black. Oh, and the breathing was gone. 

That shouldn’t have been as big of a deal as it felt like. 

“Ahsoka,” her reflection started, but before she could continue Ahsoka cut her off.

“Is this a Benadryl dream?” she asked, because she didn’t remember taking anything before going to bed but she also didn’t remember getting home, so it was all really up in the air at the moment. Something had to explain what was going on.

“I don’t know what that is,” her reflection stated matter of factly, a look of urgency in her eyes as her eyebrows pinched together. Had she glued the hairs down and used white face paint over it? Whatever it was, it looked sick as hell. “We don’t have much time, I need to talk to you.”

“Whatever you say, lady,” Ahsoka shrugged, because why not just go with it at this point. Life is already so goddamn weird, and all that. Why not add the Halloween 2020 edition of herself to the list?

“Ahsoka I need you to listen closely,” Halloween-Ahsoka said, grabbing her cheeks urgently. Was it weird that Ahsoka was kind of into it? “Can you please nod to let me know that you understand?”

Ahsoka nodded.  _ Whatever you say, lady. _

While looking this close-up, she noticed that this version of herself looked older. Maybe 20? So college-Halloween-party Ahsoka. Interesting. 

“You’re trapped in an alternate universe with one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy.”

I mean, she had to laugh, right? She hadn’t thought that it was going to be this type of weird dream, but since when has  _ any _ weird dream ever made sense? 

“Okay, sure thing, totally,” she laughed, fighting to control herself. If this was a dream, why not have fun with it, right?

“You’ve never had a lucid dream in your life, don’t trick yourself into thinking this is one of them. This is for real, Ahsoka,” her reflection said, her jaw set in a serious and frustrated way. Ahsoka didn’t like how right she was. 

“My name is Ahsoka Tano, presumably the same as you, and from what little information I was able to gather, you’re in some galaxy or reality that isn’t mine because a  _ very _ bad guy threw a major temper tantrum about his life choices and is currently holding you and himself there.”

“That seems a little out of my league,” Ahsoka said, only now starting to panic. Maybe she missed the breathing as opposed to the words of this crazy woman. Her reflection grabbed her wrist. Tightly. With a quick glance at her biceps, she was suddenly made aware that this woman was  _ much _ stronger than her. 

“Ahsoka–”

“Listen, this is crazy and I really just want to wake up–”

“Have you noticed anything weird lately? Things that don’t match up with your perception of reality? Maybe things glitching or not matching a linear timeline?” When Ahsoka remained quiet, she pressed on, “Listen, I’ve had my own interactions with pocket dimensions. I promise I’m telling you the truth.”

“Okay…” Ahsoka mumbled, slowly and non-threateningly pulling her wrists from her reflection’s grip, “Okay. Well, you said that whoever made this whole…  _ thing _ was stuck here too, right?” Her reflection nodded. “So what’s the big deal? Why does it even matter? That means that you’re rid of your problem and my life is fine so I don’t see what needs to change.”

She was genuinely about to pinch herself to try to wake up when: “He calls you Snips here too, right?”

She paused. 

“Anakin? Tall, brown hair, worst influence you could ask for? I’m guessing you have one of those wherever you’re from?” Her reflection prodded, then gestured at Ahsoka’s shirt, “sorry, I don’t really know what’s going on with your universe. It seems a bit different than where I’m from.”

“Why are you asking about Anakin?” Ahsoka asked, starting to notice a bit more that the helmet on her reflection’s head didn’t move like a helmet. 

“Ahsoka, I’m trying not to give you too much information at once, to let you process–”

“You probably shouldn’t have opened with the alternate universe thing then–”

“ _ But _ ,” her reflection pressed on stubbornly, “I want to tell you what I can because I don’t think we’ll be able to see each other a second time. It’s a miracle that I could even come up with enough energy to break through to you as it is.”

“How are you doing this, by the way?” Ahsoka asked, “Holy  _ shit _ do I have  _ superpowers _ in your universe?”

“I don’t know what those are,” her reflection said candidly, “but I do know that I’m the only person who could do this because I have a connection with the guy who did it  _ and _ a lot of power given to me by a freak accident years ago.”

“But what–” before Ahsoka could ask what that even meant, another woman appeared. At least, Ahsoka thought it was a woman. There was so much light radiating off of her that it was hard to look at her directly. But, in the brief glimpse she got, Ahsoka saw trailing white fabric, an ornate gold headpiece, flowing green hair, and a kind smile. Then she was gone again.

“Right. Superpowers or magic or something. What does this have to do with me?”

“Everything,” Her reflection said, only to be cut off by the faintest breath. One that Ahsoka had heard earlier in the dream, only it didn’t sound as omnipresent anymore. Instead, it sounded like she was listening to it through a wall. When she looked down, she saw the water beneath her rippling in time with the breathing. 

“I don’t have much time,” her reflection rushed, “you asked me why any of this is a problem? It’s not. But it can be a solution. Ahsoka, I need you to find the person who’s controlling all of this and remind him of what he’s left behind, but more importantly: I need you to show him that what he was doing before he made this place was wrong and that when he comes back he has to fight for the good guys again.”

“I don’t even know–”

“You have to go now,” her reflection continued, and before Ahsoka knew what was happening, a hand was pushing her down, back into the water. But it didn’t feel like a passageway anymore. It felt like she was drowning. 

“Who do I have to–” was all she could get out before her head was fully submerged and the dark liquid was pouring into her mouth. While she was sinking, though, she heard an all-encompassing voice that was ethereal and soft and not at all her own surround her right before she blacked out.

_ Anakin. _

* * *

When she woke up, she would’ve easily passed all of it off as some freak dream caused by too much Benadryl if not for the green and white owl perched on the tree branch outside her window, staring unblinkingly into her soul and letting her know that it was all true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot?
> 
> (Yes I was listening to Is A Real Boy by Say Anything while writing this. That's why there's a Say Anything band shirt and also a song title from the album as the title. Give it a listen if you want The Vibes)
> 
> (The comments, kudos, and subscriptions keep me going, guys. Thank you all so much!!)


	5. This Time I'll Know It's Real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Padme content

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No beta we die like men.

The first time Anakin met Padme Amidala was on a soccer field. They were seven. 

It was a co-ed league that Anakin joined because the practice schedule aligned with his mother’s the most and Padme joined because her family was just like that. The first time their separate teams played each other Anakin was playing goalie and Padme was on offense. When she broke from the cluster of the other second graders, dribbling the ball delicately and with practiced determination, Anakin had forgotten the whole point of his position and stopped everything to tell her she looked like an angel. She paused long enough to smile sweetly (and show her two missing teeth) before scoring on Anakin. He’d never stood a chance. 

The second time Anakin met Padme was in middle school. First day of biology.

He hadn’t thought about her since soccer, but the minute she walked in with her hair in one neat braid down the back of her clean white shirt, all of the memories the angel came back in a flood. He tried not to physically cringe from the second-hand embarrassment. When she put her turquoise binder (which was aptly labeled “science”) next to his second-hand i-pod touch with a cracked screen that was connected to the headphones he was using to drown out his fear that he’d say something weirder, he almost passed out. When she said, “get any better at soccer yet?” he thought he was going through the symptoms of a heart attack. When she laughed but not maliciously at him shaking his head  _ no _ and then asked him what he was listening to and then took the earbud he offered in response, he  _ really _ thought he was going to have to switch schools. When she listened to the rest of  _ Heart Tattoo  _ with him silently while the rest of the class settled down around them, then asked him what the name of the band was after the song ended, he decided he was in love with her. 

The first time Anakin and Padme hung out, it was with Ben.

He was a mutual friend of them both, because he went to the same elementary school as Padme and was in half of Anakin’s classes. Life works out that way sometimes. Padme had asked if Anakin wanted to walk to 7-11 with her and Ben after school, because it was down the street from their neighborhood. Anakin had jumped at the chance and called his mom to tell her he’d be a little late that day. After the 7-11, Ben split down a different street and Anakin walked Padme the rest of the way to her house. It took him 20 minutes on his skateboard to get back to the Skywalker residence. He walked her home every day since then. 

The first time they kissed, it was because of Ahsoka. 

It was sophomore year, the same year they’d adopted Ahsoka into their friend group and three became four. Ben, Anakin, and Ahsoka had come to see Padme’s first soccer game of the season (she was the best striker Anakin had ever seen) and after the game (they’d won 5-0) the four were talking under the bleachers, just because they were hooligans. Anakin and Ahsoka had brought Arizonas and Twizzlers to share, and they were sitting on a combination of Anakin’s hoodie, Ahsoka’s jacket, and a blanket Ben had brought. They were playing truth or dare, because of course they were. Ben had admitted to never eating a strawberry before (weird) and Ahsoka had been dared to tie a cherry stem with only her teeth (they didn’t have cherries so they used a Twizzler). Ahsoka asked Anakin for a truth or a dare and, never one to back down from a challenge, Anakin had picked truth; because he knew Ahsoka and he knew that her truths hit harder than her dares. “Who do you like?”. And, of course, she already knew the answer to this because he’d told her because he couldn’t keep a secret from her to save his life. So she got to watch with satisfied smarminess as Anakin looked at Padme and the whole group dynamic shifted forever. (Anakin then dared Padme to “tell him what she was thinking”, and she surged forward and pressed a kiss to his lips. He hasn’t stopped floating since.)

The first time Anakin figured out that maybe there was more to the politics of high school relationships than he’d initially thought was the day after. 

He was waiting at the front of the school to walk Padme home (well, wheel. She’d gotten a bike for her birthday Freshman year. Now she could keep up with his skateboard) and when she finally came out of the school almost all of the cars were gone. Her eyes were red. He didn’t ask her about it the whole way home, but she smiled sadly when he offered her some of his Doritos. When they finally got to her house (the high school wasn’t much further than the middle school) he still didn’t say anything, but using her sixth-sense of always knowing what to say, she explained to him that one of the girls on her soccer team had seen them kiss under the bleachers and made an off-hand comment about Padme being able to do better. And Anakin had agreed, so he’d taken it to mean that he was getting dumped before they’d even started dating. But when he didn’t wait to walk her home the next day because he’d wanted to give her space, he was awarded with several angry and confused texts from her  _ and _ Ahsoka  _ and  _ Ben, all asking what was wrong and where he’d gone. When he’d looped back to meet Padme, a defeated and apologetic look on his face, she’d promised him that she couldn’t give less of a flying fuck what other people said, that the comment had just caught her off-guard. Anakin had hugged her then, but they hadn’t kissed near school grounds ever again. 

And the first time Anakin had formally met her family? He couldn’t even remember. 

Somehow he’d gotten from point A (his bathroom where the door had magically flown shut on its own) to point B (Padme’s family’s dinner table where a lovely home-cooked meal was decorating the table end to end) to point C (his bed, in the dark, looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars) all without really taking any of it in. He wasn’t even really sure if any of it had actually happened. 

**Padme <3:**

**Tonight went really well!! :D**

**Sola really liked you. She wants to watch Game of Thrones with us**

Anakin didn’t know how to respond. How was he supposed to agree that the night went well when he could barely piece together any of it? He didn’t even remember if Sola was an older or younger sister. 

**Anakin:**

**That’s great <3**

It didn’t take any more than 10 seconds for him to get a response

**Padme <3:**

**Are you okay?**

**You seemed a little bit off tonight**

He smiled, loving the fact that she could read him so well. After casting a quick glance to the bathroom door, visible across the hall, and feeling it’s ominous energy radiating into his room, he pressed the “call” button and held his phone up to his ear.

“Ani?” Padme’s voice came softly through the speaker. She must have been whispering, “are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he assured her, “I just had a super weird day today. Sorry if I was kind of out of it during dinner.”

“It’s fine,” she smiled, “my parents didn’t say anything about it. They were very impressed with how dashing you looked. Their words, not mine.”

“Yeah, well, you can thank Ahsoka and Ben for that,” he smiled. 

_ Shit. Ahsoka and Ben. What happened to them after the door? Did Ben drive her home? Did she remember that, too? And what about the weird time-loop that happened? Did she know what was going on? He should text her.  _

“Ani,” Padme cooed, sounding like she’d just repeated herself, “are you still there?”

“Yeah, of course,” he mumbled apologetically, putting the phone on speaker and opening his messages app, “I’m gonna get going, okay? I just wanted to call and say good night.”

“You’re sweet.”

“Only for you,” he promised, “I love you.”

“I know.”

With that, the line shut off and Anakin worked on typing out a cool but concerned but totally relaxed but kind of freaking out message to Ahsoka. 

* * *

When Anakin dreamed that night, he dreamed that he couldn't breathe. That what little breath he could get out sounded mechanical and regulated. He dreamed that he was in someplace dark with water underneath his feet. When he looked down for a closer look, he saw two images of Ahsoka facing each other. He tried to call out to her, but something was covering his mouth and all that came out was more of the robotic breathing. 

* * *

When he woke up he realized that he must’ve fallen asleep trying to figure out what to send, because there was no delivered message. 

When he got into the car and left to go pick up Padme, the little owl that Ahsoka had painted on the piece of cardboard which hung from the rearview mirror seemed to be glaring at him a little more intensely than the day before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from Heart Tattoo. It was either going to be that of "Alive With The Glory of Love"
> 
> This update came faster than I expected. I love this AU, it makes me excited about writing.
> 
> I can't thank you all enough for your comments, likes, subscriptions, etc. They really do mean the world, and I read and (try to) reply to every single one. Thank you guys!


	6. And It's Just So Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She inspected Anakin’s features as he looked up into Padme’s eyes, laughing at something she’d said and raising his eyebrows in that way that couples did when they were play-arguing. This was the guy that had ruined a whole other universe? The worst she’d ever seen him do was egg some asshole in Padme’s MUN group’s house last Halloween. And even then she’d had to talk him into it. And she was supposed to… what? Convince him to not be evil? He wasn’t in the first place. 

Ahsoka was having trouble focusing on her AP Chem equations. Partially because her forearm was still tender from where she’d inked a new tattoo on it the night before. (The owl, which she’d originally wanted to get professionally done when she turned 18. Though, back when she’d decided that, it was just something that she’d sketched for fun after vaguely remembering it from a dream. Now, she was questioning how coincidental it really was). The other reason she was having difficulty focusing was because, if she thought about it too hard, the equations would flicker and disappear. 

“You doing good, Snips?” Anakin asked from Ben’s floor, where he was rolling a joint like the Super Edgy Teenage Rebels they were. Ben and Padme were in the corner, turning a blind eye. Well, Padme was doing so much better than Ben was. Ahsoka could feel the disapproval from here. 

_ Holy shit _ , she thought _ , is that one of other me's superpowers? Sensing emotions? _

The line where she’d written her name went blank. 

“Fuck.” Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes closed. 

“Ani?” Padme’s eyebrows knit together as she sat up from her place on the bed, discarding her laptop as she moved to the edge of the bed closest to Anakin. “Is everything okay?”

He just waved her off gently, shaking his head and blinking a few times. “Yeah, it’s nothing. Probably just a brain-freeze.” To emphasize his point, he held up his Slurpee and took another gulp.

“You know,” Ben chimed in, not looking up from the poem he was annotating, “A good way to not get brain freezes would be to avoid iced beverages.”

“Thanks, Ben,” Anakin said before taking another sip and turning back to his project, “I’ll make sure to cut out all the other good things in the world, while I’m at it.”

Ben just turned the page of his poem with a huff. “I wish you wouldn’t do that in my room.”

“What, make fun of your  _ incredibly _ helpful advice?” Anakin asked, feigning a level of thick-headedness that, even for him, was questionable. 

“You know what I-”

“Hey, dumbass,” Ahsoka crowed, happy to break eye contact with her chem homework, “he  _ means _ drink icy beverages without a lid,” she said, gesturing at the plastic top that was discarded by his backpack.

“You know that’s not what he means,” Padme added, ever the voice of reason. 

“Thank you, Padme-” Ben started, before she jumped back in.

“He’s talking about you not having a coaster for your drink.  _ Clearly. _ ”

As the three of them erupted in a round of laughter, Ben just leaned back against his headboard. “Why do I even invite you assholes over anymore?”

“Because we’re your favorite people,” Padme beamed, her perfectly manicured pink nail coming to bop Ben on the nose. 

“And you don’t have the heart to turn us away because we’re just such a loveable group of underdogs,” Ahsoka added, getting up from her place at Ben’s desk and coming to flop onto the bed, making a point to put the brunt of her weight on Ben. 

“I don’t really have a reason,” Anakin admitted, getting up and joining the dog-pile, the roll of paper in one hand and a lighter in the other, “I think you just realized a while ago that even if you locked the door I’ll just crawl in the window.”

As they lay there, Ahsoka absorbed the waves of happiness rolling over her. 

If she did… Whatever it was she had been asked to do, this was the kind of thing that she would be giving up. She looked up at Ben who, despite the mocking way his hand was buried in his palm, he’d let Padme lean her head on his shoulder, and she especially took note of the way he leaned into her just as much as she leaned into him. She looked at Padme, who had Anakin’s head in her lap and was beginning to braid his hair, as if it was just her second nature to do so. She looked at Anakin, who had his eyes closed and joint pressed to his lips before deeply inhaling. He opened them, glanced at her, and offered to share. 

Without thinking about it, she took it and pressed it to her own lips and breathed. 

Was she willing to give this up? Any of it? She didn’t know what would happen to them if she succeeded. Not that she really knew what qualified as her succeeding, but still. If Anakin from another world was making all of this, and she woke him up, would any of this be left over? Would she even be leftover? 

She inspected Anakin’s features as he looked up into Padme’s eyes, laughing at something she’d said and raising his eyebrows in that way that couples did when they were play-arguing. This was the guy that had ruined a whole other universe? The worst she’d ever seen him do was egg some asshole in Padme’s MUN group’s house last Halloween. And even then she’d had to talk him into it. And she was supposed to… what? Convince him to not be evil? He wasn’t in the first place. 

And then she thought about the glitching paper, and the way that she had been so genuinely afraid when she’d seen that door slam shut on its own just a few days ago. She felt a burn on her forearm, and looked down to see the owl glaring back at her, as if reminding her what she’d been tasked with doing.

“Is that new?” Padme asked, looking up from where she was using a hair tie to seal off her work on Anakin’s hair. 

Ahsoka nodded and held out her arm for inspection, and suddenly felt her cheeks flush red for no reason when Anakin twisted his head to look too. 

“You didn’t tell me you were adding something,” was all he said, but it was all that needed to be said. Usually, she would text him a picture the second she finished something. Usually, she didn’t even wait and would send him a step-by-step of the entire process. 

“Yeah, I was just tired last night. Crashed like right after I finished.”

“It’s cool,” he nodded, plucking the joint out of her hands and taking a drag again, “is it the one hanging up in my car?”

“Yeah,” she said, pulling her arm back into her chest. 

“Any reason?”

“Came to me in another dream.”

He just nodded again.

“Good lord,” Ben groaned as he displaced the entire group in order to get onto his feet, “I have to go find a scented candle to light. You two couldn’t even open a window?”

* * *

On the drive to her house, Anakin was silent. After saying goodbyes to Padme and Ben, he’d just climbed into the car, put on something by DREAMERS, and drove. No words. It made her uncomfortable.

When he finally pulled up in front of her house and shifted the car to park, he tapped the little cardboard owl. 

“I’m not mad about the tattoo thing, or anything. Sorry if I was being weird earlier.” Looking over, she could see that this was physically paining him, because they never talked about their feelings. This was the guy?

“It’s not a big deal,” she shrugged, “I know it’s not a  _ thing _ .”

“What was the dream about?” 

“You know,” she tested, “dream stuff. Thought that I drowned at one point. Future-me giving me a quest. Ominous breathing. The usual.”

“Right,” he agreed, and she got the distinct feeling that he wasn’t letting on everything he was thinking. 

“It’s crazy,” she tried again, “the Future-me was all like ‘I’m from an alternate dimension and you have to fix everything’. It was like a fucking movie.”

“That’s fucking batshit, Snips,” he laughed, and she got the same impression that it was all pretense. 

* * *

When she got out of the car, she felt like a liar for not telling him the whole truth, because if anyone would understand an iota of what she was going through, she knew it was him. 

What unsettled her more, though, is that she knew for a fact that he wasn’t telling her the whole truth, either. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the idea of Ahsoka and Anakin starting to dance around each other because neither has all the information. (Expect more like that to come next).


	7. The Empire's Melting Like Ice Cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With how little they were talking about it, Anakin could almost trick himself into believing that it was just some freak dream that he had. That his stress over his dinner at Padme’s had manifested itself as a nightmare where everything leading up to it goes terribly wrong and then he could just take all of that and bury it somewhere in the back of his head so he would never have to deal with it again. 
> 
> Never mind the fact that Ahsoka had been acting weird ever since it had happened. Never mind the fact that she was more abrasive and secretive around him than ever before, or the searing headaches that would overtake him in a moment and then be gone as swiftly as they’d come. Never mind the fact that, even now, Anakin could hear the bathroom door slamming shut of its own free will.
> 
> You’d think that talking to your friends about your problems would be a walk in the park, especially for someone like Anakin who had so many problems to talk about; but no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that on the Star Wars Spotify account, there's a different 50-ish song playlist for pretty much EVERY Star Wars character (including Palpatine, BB-8, and Cassian Andor)? Anyway, the Anakin playlist is *chef kiss* and is usually playing when I'm writing his chapters. 
> 
> (Chapter Title from Crown of the Valley by Jets to Brazil)

Sometimes, Anakin wished his dad had been a better guy. Not for him (at least, not entirely for him) but for his mom. Shmi Skywalker deserved the kind of guy that didn’t leave for a carton of milk 10 years ago and never find it. 

Anakin would think about the kind of guy who his mom deserved, and when he realized that there were none that deserved her, he’d think of the kind of guys that would at least make her happy. Someone who would wash the dishes without even being asked, who would surprise her with flowers even if it wasn’t a special occasion, or just someone who would love her as unconditionally as anyone could. And when reality checked back in and Anakin was forced to remember the fact that no guy would ever be that good, he would wish that she would at least find someone that just... didn't suck. 

But Anakin would also remember that his mother was so much stronger than all of that; than any _guy_. Having to help Anakin grow up without his dad around, Shmi became more than a parent, she became a motherfucking god among men. In all her glory, she was able to maintain her job, keep watch of Anakin (who, let’s be real, was never a particularly easy child), and never seem to break a sweat. Anakin knew that last part wasn’t totally true, that after she thought he was asleep sometimes she would just pour herself a much-deserved glass of wine and occupy the couch with the TV on a low enough setting to not disturb her son and just take a minute to herself. And when she sometimes fell asleep there, and he sometimes went to get a midnight snack, if he pulled the blanket a little higher on his mother to make sure she didn’t get cold, he never mentioned it again. It was the least he could do for a mother who’d given him so much. 

All of that said, when Anakin first met Cliegg Lars, he had his reservations. As he’d said, no guy would ever be _that_ good. The bouquet of yellow tulips, the ironed dress shirt and nice slacks, and the tanned face of someone who worked outside. Anakin didn’t trust it for a second. But when his mom came from the living room, her hair pinned nicely and a wispy black shawl draped across her arms in a regal manner that reminded him of Padme, Anakin put on a happy face. Because none of it compared to the way her face lit up when she saw Cliegg on the doorstep.

“I left some money on the counter for food,” Shmi said, pressing a kiss to Anakin’s forehead before taking Cliegg’s extended hand and letting him help her down the stairs. (Which was _weird,_ by the way, because it wasn’t like she was wearing heels. Did she really need help getting down the stairs of her own home?)

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Anakin called, in what he hoped came across in a good-natured sort of way. Maybe it wasn’t too good to be true, and he was just being too quick to judge. But, as he watched Cliegg open the door of the Kia (a _Kia?_ Who even _was_ this guy?) he couldn’t help but be suspicious. 

As the car drove away, in a way that was too quiet, in Anakin’s opinion, he shut the door and observed his home. After years of living in the same house, barely anything had changed. The most dramatic shift that the decor had taken since his childhood was, after almost a year since last hearing from his father, Shmi had finally taken initiative and thrown all of his stuff into a garbage bag and left it on the curb. All that this really meant was that the house felt lighter, and also that they moved the couch to the other side of the living room. 

Realistically, he should be doing homework. It’s what Padme would tell him to do. _But_ Padme and Ben were at a weekend-long Debate Team conference out of town, and Ahsoka was going to some fancy dinner with her dad. So he didn’t actually have to answer to anyone. 

So, Call of Duty. 

* * *

Anakin was getting tired. Chinese food littered the coffee table in front of him, though he paid it little mind as he kept his eyes trained on the television screen, holding his controller at an angle like that would help with his accuracy. Mario whizzed by on the screen, with his stupid little go-kart with the stupid little rocket boosters and his stupid little “ya-hoo!” as he crossed the finish line and Anakin shouted obscenities. 

He had to pee. Had on-and-off for the past hour, really. But every time he thought about getting up, he’d feel a pressure at the nape of his neck as he recalled That Night(™). 

_Stop telling me to sit down._

_Don’t yell at me like that._

_You’re making me nervous._

And suddenly he didn’t have to pee anymore. 

With how little they were talking about it, Anakin could almost trick himself into believing that it was just some freak dream that he had. That his stress over his dinner at Padme’s had manifested itself as a nightmare where everything leading up to it goes terribly wrong and then he could just take all of that and bury it somewhere in the back of his head so he would never have to deal with it again. 

Never mind the fact that Ahsoka had been acting weird ever since it had happened. Never mind the fact that she was more abrasive and secretive around him than ever before, or the searing headaches that would overtake him in a moment and then be gone as swiftly as they’d come. Never mind the fact that, even now, Anakin could hear the bathroom door slamming shut of its own free will.

You’d think that talking to your friends about your problems would be a walk in the park, especially for someone like Anakin who had so many problems to talk about; but no.

His phone pinged, and he gratefully picked it up to distract himself from the train of thought that _surely_ was leading somewhere _totally_ healthy. 

It was a few pictures from Padme. The first of her on the bus their debate team was taking, her sleeping mask with embroidered eyelashes resting on her head and the hood of the sweatshirt she’d ‘borrowed’ from him drawn over her head. The next was a picture of Ben, sitting across the aisle from her, in a heated conversation with Satine –one of Padme’s friends who was always entangled with Ben _somehow–_ which involved her gesturing aggressively at her laptop. The last was of Satine fast asleep on Ben’s shoulder with Padme in the bottom corner, sticking her tongue out at the camera. 

He wished he could just forget everything and enjoy that moment. He wanted so desperately to just be able to send back an equally light-hearted picture, call it a day, and not have to worry about slamming doors and Ahsoka and green owls that seemed to be looking at him no matter where he went. He wished the ringing in his ears would stop, mostly. 

**Padme <3:**

**Miss you! ;P**

_Liar._

Which was the _wrong_ reaction. Anakin almost dropped his phone when he realized that the thought was a reaction to what Padme had said, because she was all the good things – _every_ good thing– and had never given the slightest indication that she was anything but upfront and truthful. And yet, staring at the screen, at the dumb little face made of characters, something visceral and _angry_ jumped into Anakin’s throat. Something that wanted to yell and kick and _hurt something._

The glass vase on the end table, the one holding the flowers that _Cliegg_ had given to his mom a week ago that were still bright and colorful because _of course they were,_ popped, as if it couldn’t wait to not hold itself together anymore. 

Anakin would be fucking terrified if the glass that had just split in all directions, had come flying at him at 40 miles an hour, had hurt or left a scratch, but instead, he’d had to watch as he’d held his hands up to shield his face, only for the glass shards to stop in their tracks like they were being pulled backward by another set of hands. He’d be really panicking, if the glass that was remaining motionless in the air didn’t feel so, _so_ right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene in the new Clone Wars episode where Ahsoka and Anakin sense each other from different ships cleared my skin, watered my plants, and decked me right in the jaw.


	8. Feeling Time Peel Away At My Life Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they finally talk. Kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot twist: I upload 2 chapters in one day
> 
> Chapter title from The D In Detroit by The Anniversary

Ahsoka was woken up with a start. The tiny alarm clock on her bedside table read a mocking 2:39 A.M. because life loved playing cruel jokes on her. Since her encounter with what she had deemed her Exposition Ghost, Ahsoka had been grappling with the two-sided battle of whether or not she wanted to fall back asleep ever again. Part of her was terrified, scared that if she did she’d get another announcement that would throw a wrench in her already confused view of the universe. 

Part of her yearned for such a message. After being set on this new quest (was quest too pretentious? It sounded pretentious.) she’d been floundering. How was she supposed to help a universe she knew nothing about, to remind Anakin of a version of himself she’d never met? Mostly, she yearned for someone to tell her what to do. 

But falling asleep at 1 and waking up at 2:40 didn’t do anyone any good, especially not on a Thursday night. Friday morning. Whatever. It was too early for all of this. 

Halfheartedly, she looked at the offending awakener. Her phone, with the ringer she’d forgotten to switch off because of course she had, was humming a song she’d long-since grown tired of but had been unbothered by just enough to forget to change it, signaling an incoming call from Anakin. 

The root of all of her problems. 

The solution to all of them, too.

A candid picture of him taken from an unflattering angle, which she’d happily saved as his contact photo, was absorbing her entire screen, with “Skyguy” at the top in what she decided was an extremely unwelcoming font. 

Despite the fact that she’d been kind of dodging his texts and kind of avoiding talking to him recently, she found herself hitting the answer button. 

“Snips,” his voice came through the tiny speaker as she held it up to her ear, and it hurt to recognize the fear and desperation in it. No matter the distance she’d been building between the two of them or the disconnect that had been happening for longer than she’d wanted to admit, in just hearing that one word Ahsoka could _feel_ everything going on in his head. It went beyond just the connection they’d had for the past three years of being best friends, but in a way she’d only just started to uncover, she was keenly aware of impressions he made, of feelings or hopes or fears. It scared her, to be so conscious of the person she was supposed to believe could ruin a whole galaxy. 

“I’m here, Skyguy,” she said, already rolling out of her bed and blindly searching for her slippers on the ground because she knew the next step of this dance. This was one they’d done even before the world was bigger than their little town. “How far away are you?”

“I’m in the driveway.”

“Okay, I’ll be out in two seconds,” she said, before hanging up and cracking open her window. 

* * *

Ahsoka’s dad had always been easy going. She’d lucked out, really. Dr. Koon –who’d insisted that it was fine that she call him Plo since the day he’d adopted her– had never been overbearing or strict. He’d never been the kind of dad that made her put her phone in the hallway at 9 every night or threatened to not let her go out if she didn’t tell her where and with whom. 

This was why she felt particularly bad every time she snuck out at 2 A.M.

Because she knew that, if it was any other time of day, he’d be fine with it. It’s just because it was a school day and she should get her rest and this was the time of night where the worst kind of things happened. 

But, really, she didn’t tell him just because it would involve waking him up, too, and that just seemed like a dick move. It wasn’t like he’d even know she’d been gone. This was what she told herself that let her sleep at night. 

When she got out the window –an easy feat since her room was ground level– and rounded the corner of the house in order to reach the driveway where the Skywalker Minivan was waiting with Anakin nervously seated in the driver’s seat, his head tilted up against the headrest and seemingly mouthing along to a song, she couldn’t decide if her heart stopped or just sped up so fast she couldn’t keep track anymore. 

When she slid into the passenger’s seat, she could hear the thrum of a familiar song that for some reason she’d forgotten every word to. Anakin didn’t wait to hear the click of a seat belt before he started backing up and turning onto the street. 

They drove in silence for a while, and Ahsoka was keenly aware of the fact that said silence was occasionally broken with a sharp sniffle from him. She didn’t do him the rudeness of looking to check, but she didn’t have to, either. The air around him seemed to be humming with energy, like if she put her hand on the center armrest between them it would zap her. 

The music playing from the speakers was continuously unknowable, and unlike usual, it did nothing but set Ahsoka on edge. Racking her brain, she couldn’t remember the lyrics to _any_ song, and just when she thought she could grasp one, it would slip away from her again. 

When she looked out the window, up into the mostly starry sky, all she could think about was how they looked like they were blinking more than they usually did. Moving more than they should. How there looked like there were more airplanes out tonight than she’d ever seen at one time. How they would disappear in the blink of an eye, as if they’d never been there in the first place. 

When they finally pulled into the parking lot – _their_ parking lot. The one they went to when they had problems only the stars could answer– Anakin put the car into park mechanically before placing his hands back on the wheel like it was keeping him in place. This time Ahsoka did look, and she could see the watery lines trailing down his face as he stared ahead. More importantly, though, she could see the way that his brows were knit tightly together, how his jaw was tensed in a way that made her own teeth hurt, and how there was clear and unabashed fear in his eyes. 

“Snips,” he said, and she could feel the weight of the world in his words. If she were looking out the window, she could see the way that the one lamppost in the parking lot was flickering wildly, like it was throwing its own temper tantrum, “I’m scared.”

Under normal circumstances, she would say _yeah, no shit_ and move on. But this wasn’t normal. None of this was normal. The speakers had jumped from whatever had been playing on his phone to some late-night radio show, to a Top 40 playlist, and then abruptly to static. 

“What’s wrong?”

She watched as he opened his mouth to speak, only for nothing to come out. Then, again, this time shaking his head and gritting his teeth even harder, and because it was all she could do in that moment, Ahsoka reached out a hand and put it on his forearm as comfortingly as she could. 

_Flashes of red consumed her vision, a planet of char and heat and anger. Overwhelming and insufferable fire and the rage of being forced to crawl to some unseen entity high up above like Sisyphus on a doomed journey to never be completed._

_I_ ** _hate_** _you!_

_And suddenly, a wave of cold and suffocation. Of being forced into a constricting uniform and struggling to take each breath. A feeling of rejuvenation at a cost, and the loss of all the things good in the world._

_And the anger, so much anger. She couldn’t contain all of it inside of her. She couldn’t stop feeling it welling up inside like a geyser, ready to spring free without a moment’s notice, over and over and over._

_She saw herself, her Exposition Ghost, standing tall in a room full of walls and electricity, pleading and promising not to leave and quick glimpses of a sun-filled city and a feeling of loneliness before the anger was back and she wanted her_ ** _dead_** _she should be_ ** _dead_** _for what she did she should_ ** _pay for leaving_** _._

_And all Ahsoka could see was the red, red, red._

She tore her hand off of Anakin’s arm, which suddenly looked metal and then was covered in hard leather and then was gone altogether and then was back to normal but there was no normal because all of this was so _not_ normal. 

She had wanted her dead. _He_ had wanted her dead. And he’d had the means to do it. _What the fuck had her other self done to him?_

_What had he done with all that rage?_

She’d felt more than just the hatred within him, though. She’d felt the power. The geyser, the one that could be aimed like a missile and let free. She’d felt the way weapons had felt at home in his hands and how throats had constricted when he told them to. She put her own hand up to her throat, just to check, as the other one blindly reached behind her as she scrambled to find the door handle. 

Once she finally got the door open, she all but rolled out of the car, stumbling over the white lines of parking spaces before crumpling to her knees and not thinking about the fact that she couldn’t feel the asphalt digging into her hands. 

She didn’t look up, but she could feel him get out of the car, not moving any closer to her. 

She knew this wasn’t helpful. She knew that she’d been charged with making sure he _didn’t_ go back into whatever that was and her running away like a scared kid and treating him like something to be feared was the exact opposite of what needed to be done. He’d told her he was scared and she hadn’t given him a single reason not to be. 

But when she’d met herself in a dream and that self had told her that her best friend was capable of “bad things”, she hadn’t expected that. Maybe she’d thought that, as a concept, some other Anakin would be the kind of mustache-twirling bad guy that she could see in any summer blockbuster, but seeing that from him herself, knowing that those experiences were inside _her_ Anakin was another beast entirely. 

“Ahsoka,” he said, pleaded, but all she could hear was _liar_ and _you were my brother_ and _I hate you I hate you I hate you_ and she didn’t even know that a human could make that kind of noise, that broken, animalistic yell that could only come from someone who’d lost everything they had left to lose, but she’d felt it claw its way out of his throat like it was her own. She was still catching her breath from the machine that had limited and allowed him to breathe all at once. 

“Don’t come any closer to me,” She said, holding up a hand to keep him at bay and she could feel the world plunge into darkness as the stars flicker out one by one and looking up to the sky above her she saw creatures she’d never seen before but knew by heart fly across the spotless black slate, before turning back into birds or planes, or whatever they should’ve been in the first place. 

_Ahsoka,_ the voices came back, but this time it was soft and embracing and familiar, the green-haired woman Ahsoka had seen in her dream, _you need to calm down. You’re letting your emotions get the better of you._

Well, that’s easy for you to say when you’re a celestial being who can come and go as you please. Ahsoka was just one of those suckers who got stuck in a world that apparently wasn’t real with a man who was apparently incredibly dangerous.

Ahsoka looked over at Anakin, who was frozen in place like he didn’t know what else to do, and he kept looking _wrong._ Like he was too young, then too old, then too battle-hardened, then just a kid. He was just a kid. They were both just scared kids who expected them to have any control of this?

“Ahsoka _please_ ,” he begged, and did he always have that scar over his eye? Yeah. No. No there was… There had been something else there before. Something metal. And what about his hand? Did he just own rings that she hadn’t known about, or what his hand usually reflective? Was his hair longer or shorter than it had been a minute ago?

“Anakin I need it to stop,” she cried back and when she went to comb a hand through her hair she couldn’t find any. She checked again only to find a hard, pointed surface. Except when it melted away and gave way once more to her hair which she was suddenly extremely unfamiliar with. “Make it _stop!”_

And then it did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just :) love hurting myself like this


	9. So At Least Tonight My Head Will Be Alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they actually talk. For real this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3 chapters in 2 days? Who even is she??
> 
> Chapter title from Eleven to Your Seven by Hey Mercedes

Anakin didn’t know how he was doing it. He didn’t even really know what “it” was. All he knew was that one second everything was happening at a breakneck speed and then it wasn’t. All around him, he could see the slowness that had overcome everything that wasn’t either him or Ahsoka. As if the world just suddenly decided to turn slower.

He hadn’t meant to. Beyond his overall sense of confusion and anxiety about everything happening, there was this all-encompassing sense of  _ guilt. _ It felt like not only was what he’d somehow just done unnatural and powerful, but like he wasn’t supposed to let himself go in such a way. There was also a curiosity, because if he could do this without even trying, what could he do if he was?

But that train of thought didn’t lead anywhere good. It didn’t help anyone, least of all Ahsoka. He looked away from where he could feel the grass growing slower and to Ahsoka, only to find her still crouched down on the asphalt, still with a hand splayed out to keep him at bay, still very much freaking out.  _ Why? _ He’d done what she’d asked him to. He’d made it stop. What more did she need for him to convince her that he wasn’t the problem here? That he just needed her help.

“Ahsoka,” he called again, and how many more times would he have to until she just looked at him? With the world literally falling to pieces around him, was it so much to ask for his best friend to just acknowledge his existence? To make it so he wasn’t in this alone?

She had her hair twisted around her other hand, her face buried deep into it as if she were just trying to remind herself that it was there. From where he was standing, he could feel the fear radiating off of her in waves. Why couldn’t she see that he was scared too? Why couldn’t she understand that he knew just as much about what was going on as she did?

He took a step closer to her, just a test, and was met with a push. It felt… in theory, it was like the vase, like being pulled by an invisible hand, but this didn’t feel right. This felt wrong, like he wasn’t in control of his own movement. Like something was overpowering him. He looked at Ahsoka’s flexed hand, then up to realize her gaze had traveled to the same place. 

_ Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you, Snips? _

_ I’m not leaving you again. Not this time.  _

_ I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m not just going to stay here while you act like a crazy person. _

The headaches were back. Though, that was too nice a word for it. That made it sound like he just needed to take a nap and get over himself when the reality was that there was a pressure not unlike an anvil pushing down on his head so hard that he could barely see. There was a high pitched ringing in his ears that seemed to be coming from the very air around him. There was nothing he could do but clap his hands over his ears and pray it would stop. 

“-nakin!” He could barely hear her over the ringing. He’d just made the world stop on its axis but he couldn’t control his own body so what was the fucking  _ point? _

“Hey! Skyguy!” And he didn’t see the rock flying towards him so much as sense it in that hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-stands-up kind of way. He didn’t have to rely on anything more than gut instincts to just hold his hand out a little and look up to see the rock stalled in midair. Like the glass. Like the door. He didn’t have to look much further to see Ahsoka, back on her feet though looking like she’d give anything to lie down, her right arm sagging in front of her and breathing heavily. 

He could see why she did it. Looking around, the world did not look like it just had. Trees were missing, or they were where they shouldn’t be. He couldn’t find the moon anywhere in the sky, and was Ahsoka taller than she’d ever been? Or had he just never really noticed. 

“ _ Please, _ ” and she looked angry, angrier than he’d ever seen her. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just that he’d never seen her look at  _ him _ with that level of unbridled fury. “Just  _ stop.” _

“You stop!” He retorted, and he didn’t mean to yell, he really didn’t, but it just came so easily and before he’d even thought about it, the rock was flying backward at Ahsoka and he was so relieved that on instinct she just ducked out of the way. When it hit the tree behind her, it made a hole straight through the wood. 

“I’m-” he said, looking at her scared face, her angry eyes, and maybe she was right to be a little scared of him. He hadn’t  _ meant  _ to. “I’m sorry.”

And finally, the ringing stopped. He felt like this was the first time since they’d gotten to the parking lot that he could catch his breath. He lowered his hand and couldn’t be bothered to think about the line of water he could feel pouring out of his eyes. 

Again, he wasn’t looking, but he could feel her make her way over and just… just give him a hug. He hadn’t realized how much he’d needed that this whole time until he was wrapping his own arms around her and burying his face deep into her hair and breathing and reveling in the empathy radiating off of her. 

“Me too, Skyguy.”

* * *

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy,” Ahsoka said from next to him. He always kept a blanket in his car for times like these (maybe not  _ exactly _ like these) and they’d lain it down beneath them on the asphalt to stare up at the sky. Anakin still couldn’t find the moon. That didn’t matter. That was a problem for another time.

“Trust me, Snips, I don’t think things can get much weirder than they already have.”

She looked over at him with a face that said  _ you don’t know the half of it _ before turning back up to the stars. He couldn’t help but think of the last time they’d done this, barely over a week ago. How had it all gotten so wrong so fast?

“I was visited by another version of myself in a dream and she told me that we’re living in an alternate universe.”

He had to laugh, right?

He would’ve kept going, too, if he didn’t feel her waiting to speak again. Great. More.

“She said that you, the other timeline version of you, were the one that made this place,” she looked over at him again, “she said that before that happened you were a really bad guy.”

Anakin would  _ love _ to contest that point. To be able to say  _ me? This guy? Check your facts.  _ But the truth was that maybe this was easier to accept than Anakin wanted to admit. The things he’d been seeing… these terrible things. Things that he knows he’d never done but still felt so real, so first hand. Faces of people and machines that he’d mowed down like they were nothing. Faces of his friends in ways he didn’t recognize, turning against him only for him to do nothing but pushing back harder. 

_ You’re breaking my heart.  _

_ You were my brother.  _

_ I’m not coming back. _

The pinpricks of another migraine (still not a strong enough word) edged at him from the base of his skull, only for Ahsoka to reach over and give his hand a soft squeeze, reminding him that  _ no. You’re here. You’re present. That one’s not you. _

Anakin was a little more afraid than he wanted to admit, too. 

“How long have you known?”

“Not long,” she said, then added, “too long to have kept it from you, though. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” he sighed, “I don’t think I would have believed you a few days ago. I don’t even know if I would’ve believed you a few hours ago.”

“What, am I really that untrustworthy?” She laughed, only with an ounce of bitterness in it, “But I get it. It’s a lot.”

“Why do you think he did it?” Anakin asked, throwing his questions once again up to the stars, “Me, I mean. I guess. Why do you think he made this place if he was so large and in charge?”

“Well, my alter-ego –who I’m guessing is much more trustworthy than whatever’s been going through your head– said that he threw a massive temper tantrum. Which, by the way, is totally  _ not _ out of character-”

“Snips,” he warned, though there was no bite behind it. 

“But really?” She pondered for a second, “I don’t know what you’ve been going through these past couple of days but from where I’m standing? When I’m around you I just keep…  _ seeing _ things. Bad things. It’s enough to make anyone frustrated with themselves. I think-” She looked over at him, “I don’t know, Skyguy. I think he just wanted a do-over.”

“Great,” Anakin grumbled, sitting up and throwing his arms over his knees, “so not only am I some terrible monster, but I also can’t deal with my own bullshit without making a whole other timeline about it.”

“That’s not fair,” Ahsoka rose to meet him, “you’re acting like this guy is the same as you. I’ve never seen you fly a spaceship,” he gave her an incredulous look, “all I’m saying is that just because he’s bad doesn’t mean you are.”

“You know, you’re taking this whole ‘I’m best friends with a supervillain’ thing really well, I applaud you for that.”

“I’ve had a few more days to work through it,” she shrugged, “besides. You can’t see what’s up in my head. Total panicking mess. I’m terrified for my life as we speak.”

They both laughed at that, and Anakin was comforted by the fact that, despite what all reason should lead him to believe, she was fine. He could feel it, in the way that even though she was giving off such strong fear and anger not 20 minutes ago, all he could feel coming from her now was warmth. 

“Okay,” he nodded, and he saw the way that the birds were starting to fly at a normal speed again, “so what are we going to do about it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things: 
> 
> 1) This might've been my favorite chapter to write because we have that Sweet Sweet Angst but also these two actually having a real person conversation. Truly the best of both worlds.
> 
> 2) Eleven to Your Seven is like one of those *chef kiss* perfect songs for this fic. It's like kind of ridiculously cheesy but I just think it fits so well. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading. I know I haven't really been talking about Certain Current Events in the notes but I really do hope this at least brings some happiness to your days inside. I hope you all stay safe, can't wait to see you next chapter!


	10. Still Not Quite Convinced I Really Do Exist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For that hour and a half that Ahsoka was sitting through U.S. History, she tried to trick herself. If she could just pay attention to what her teacher was saying, she could forget that she was going to see Anakin next period. If she could just forget about Anakin for the next hour and a half, she could disregard how less than 5 hours ago she’d nearly gone into a full-tilt psychotic breakdown in a parking lot. If she could forget the events of earlier that morning, she could forget the reason that she was running on a large coffee from the Dunkin down the road was because she hadn’t really been sleeping that well recently. If she could make light of her steadily declining sleep schedule, she could pretend that it didn’t stem from a vision of herself that had told her she wasn’t real. 
> 
> Was she real?
> 
> “Earth to Ahsoka,” she felt a pencil tap her finger, and looked over to see Barriss giving her a concerned look, “did you do the reading last night?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song title from Thrashville 1/3 by Prince Daddy and the Hyena
> 
> -
> 
> Sorry for the large-ish gap between chapters, but I thought that the last chapter's end was a good time for a small intermission.

With all that had happened, showing up to school felt like a joke. 

A really weird joke with no punch-line in sight. 

_ Two kids that just found out that they can  _ **_literally_ ** _ stop time and bend it to their will, freeze objects mid-air, and know that the world around them is fake walk into class at 8:10 A.M. …  _ Where was the rest?

Not having to see Ben or Padme was a blessing in disguise. They were still going to be out of town for the next three days for their debate conference, which would normally bum Ahsoka out, but those extra days were crucial for the planning Anakin and she would have to do. 

Because lord knows Anakin couldn’t keep a secret from Padme to save his life. Just thinking about it was already starting to stress her out. 

For that hour and a half that Ahsoka was sitting through U.S. History, she tried to trick herself. If she could just pay attention to what her teacher was saying, she could forget that she was going to see Anakin next period. If she could just forget about Anakin for the next hour and a half, she could disregard how less than 5 hours ago she’d nearly gone into a full-tilt psychotic breakdown in a parking lot. If she could forget the events of earlier that morning, she could forget the reason that she was running on a large coffee from the Dunkin down the road was because she hadn’t  _ really _ been sleeping that well recently. If she could make light of her steadily declining sleep schedule, she could pretend that it didn’t stem from a vision of herself that had told her she wasn’t real. 

Was she real?

“Earth to Ahsoka,” she felt a pencil tap her finger, and looked over to see Barriss giving her a concerned look, “did you do the reading last night?”

What was she supposed to say?  _ No, actually, I didn’t do the reading because I was too busy dealing with the fact that none of us are real and we’re in an alternate universe but that’s okay because that means that the stupid textbook chapter doesn’t even matter.  _

“No, sorry,” she mumbled, and turned back to her phone with the full intent of turning up her music so that she could just drown out the rest of the class. Forget paying attention, she just wanted to not think. It’s not like she’d be graduating or anything, right? If she and Anakin succeeded, whatever that entailed, then that meant Other Anakin wakes up and… and what? This universe stopped existing? At least she didn’t have to pay application fees for schools next year. 

“Are you okay?” Barriss pressed again, snatching Ahsoka’s phone off her desk and pressing pause on her music. What was with her today?

“Barriss, can you just shut up?” She snapped, so totally  _ not _ in the mood, “I’ve really just had a shitty few days so if you could just give me my phone back I’d really appreciate it.” So what if she hurt her friend’s feelings? They wouldn’t be here soon enough. 

“Ahsoka are you…” Barriss cast a quick, doe-eyed glance to the front of the classroom where the teacher was helping another pair of students with the homework, “are you  _ hungover? _ ”

Had she always been this frustrating? Was this why Anakin had never liked her? She’d always thought the distaste he’d had for her for the past few years was ridiculous and unfounded, but maybe he was right. Maybe Ahsoka just needed to take a step back. 

“No,” she gritted out before giving up and pushing her chair back and marching to the front of the class to grab the bathroom pass. If she couldn’t get her phone back then the least she could do is get out of the claustrophobic classroom. Before she’d felt any time pass she was in the bathroom down the hall, thankfully abandoned so early in the morning. 

The first thing she did was use some of the questionably sanitary sink water to splash herself in the face, attempting any way to wake herself up a bit more. When she raised her head and met her own eyes in the mirror, she let out a resigned groan. It felt like that dream, like looking at her Reflection, but instead of a tall, strong, older, gorgeous supermodel version, she just looked tired. She could see the purple bags forming under her eyes, her hair looked greasy in the half-hearted pile it had been put in on top of her head, and the baggy maroon hoodie she was wearing did nothing to dissuade the ‘I’m Tired And Probably Need A Hug’ vibe. 

She shouldn’t have been mean to Barriss. She knew that. 

Normally, she wasn’t the mean one. Anakin was always the mean one, and she was the one who would cheer him on from the background. And then Padme and Ben would come and break up the fight. 

She missed them a lot. 

She had thought it would kill her, not telling Anakin, and it had. But the feeling didn’t go away when she finally got it off her chest. Now, all she wanted was to tell Padme and get one of her world-renowned hugs, or to confide in Ben and receive some of his infinite wisdom with a well-brewed cup of tea. The task of fixing the universe being placed on Anakin and Ahsoka felt like a horrible misjudgment, because they shared two collective brain cells and had wasted both of them on figuring out how to do a kickflip. 

And the worst part about it was the only person she could talk to about it was arguably more unstable than she was. Yeah, she’d stopped things in midair and been visited by the Ghost of Elsewhere Future, but when Anakin had gotten upset the ground had shaken beneath their feet and the world felt like it was being pulled apart at the seams. Call Ahsoka crazy, but she felt like he had enough on his plate. 

So she could deal. Save the world or something. Not think about it too much.

“Ahsoka?” Barriss’s voice came again, this time just outside the bathroom door. 

Maybe world second. Maybe she could apologize to Barriss first. 

“Yeah, I’m in here.”

The door opened, and her friend came in, though she looked like she was second-guessing herself the entire time. Ahsoka did feel bad for snapping. She was just tired. Anf frustrated. And kind of existential. 

“Are you okay?” Barriss asked, and Ahsoka felt terrible, looking into her wide, kicked-puppy-dog eyes. Just because they weren’t real didn’t mean Ahsoka could treat her like shit. Plus, she rationed, if she started having regular meltdowns in class someone was bound to talk to her, and she didn’t want to try to explain all the stuff she’d been going through. 

“No, but it’s fine.” Ahsoka turned around, using her hands to hold her weight as she leaned against the sink. So much for this being a normal first period and her getting to forget about everything. “I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, so I’m kind of tired.”

“Yeah, I could tell by the gallon of coffee sitting on your desk,” Barriss laughed, “I just wanted to check-in. Junior year can be the worst, right?”

“Yeah, totally,” Ahsoka forced her own laugh out of her throat. Junior year. That’s what she was stressing out about. “Hey, I’m sorry I snapped. That sucked.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I grabbed your phone.”

“You were just trying to be helpful,” Ahsoka conceded, and then added, “come here,” and extended her arms for a hug. Barriss came dutifully in, and Ahsoka was sure that though any high schooler worth their salt wouldn’t bat an eye at this display in the girl's bathroom at 9 AM, they probably still made a strange picture. 

As she buried her face in Barriss’ hijab, she tried not to think about how much she wished it was Padme or Ben. Yeah, Anakin couldn’t be trusted to keep a secret and she’d made him promise to leave his phone at home just in case, but maybe she couldn’t be trusted, either. 

That was bullshit, of course, because she’d lied through her teeth to her three closest friends for a week straight and nobody had noticed anything out of the ordinary, but now that she and Anakin were finally talking, she just wanted to keep telling people. 

It felt like a dam that had just begun to burst and the pressure was only getting more intense. 

For a brief, traitorous moment, she considered telling Barriss. None of her other friends talked to her, so she’d be able to get it off her chest without actually outing herself as a snitch. Of course, this thought passed just as soon as it came because she knew Barriss would react the way any sane, rational person would. They’d probably report Ahsoka to a school counselor or something. 

But standing in that school bathroom, with more caffeine running through her veins than blood, that option didn’t seem so bad. 

_ If I could just calm down I can just wait and vent to Anakin _ she lied to herself. Because that’s what she was doing, now. Tricking herself into imagining a scenario where she could just talk to her friend without fear of the world-shattering prematurely around her. You know, normal teenager things. 

But someone had to have their act together, and it really is just so rarely ever Anakin. So maybe it’s okay if she isn’t 100% doing just fine. Her 25 beats his 15. 

“Do you want to get back to class?” Barriss asked after another moment, finally pulling back and giving Ahsoka one of the kindest smiles she could imagine. That’s all she needed. Just a smile. Just the ability to pretend everything was a-okay. 

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, also, miss Padme and Ben :').
> 
> The new Clone Wars episodes really were hitting, though.


	11. Trying to remember what it's like to be nothing at all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they get breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Angel Eyes & Basketball by Foot Ox

Anakin barely made it through first period. Not for anything that actually had to do with him; this was his free period which he used to take a well-need nap. He hadn’t done much sleeping after he and Ahsoka’s heart to heart in the parking lot. He’d dropped her off, then went home and kept his phone on the other side of the room per her request, and stayed up looking at the faintly green stars stuck on his ceiling. It clicked for him there, at 4 AM underneath his plaid duvet, why they had looked so familiar and yet so unrecognizable. Looking up at them, he could see patterns he hadn’t recognized before. 

_ Core Worlds. Coruscant, Alderaan, Hosnian Prime.  _

_ Inner Rim. Onderon, Takodana, Jakku.  _

_ Mid-Rim. Kashyyyk, Nal Hutta, Brakka. Naboo.  _

_ Outer Rim. Mustafar. Tatooine.  _

He hadn’t known what these names meant, but clearly they meant something. The last two had him glaring for seemingly no reason. There must be a reason. 

But looking at his new galaxy, Anakin wasn’t hung up on the apparently insufferable Outer Rim, but was rather pulled towards the center, like gravity in action.

_ Naboo. _ The name alone made him feel like he was melting. And not in the unbearable way he had felt earlier, like he was being cooked alive, but in a way that felt like honey or syrup. The name was enough to erase all the horrors he’d been watching second-hand for what felt like days. 

But, underneath the love and heart of it all, it also felt sad. Missed. Like it was off-limits for some arbitrary reason. Without ever having been before, he yearned to go back. 

The moral implications of feeling pity and longing for the life of some other version of himself that was also some monster with a taster for blood was enough to keep Anakin awake for those few hours between returning home and leaving for school the next morning. 

Having a free period was a gift from the universe, some kind of participation award for having gone through his breakdown earlier that morning. He wondered if he’d designed it that way for just this purpose, or if it was just some cosmic bonus.

He supposed he could probably change it if he really wanted to. 

Maybe even if he didn’t want to that badly.

Free periods were taken in the library, where groups of other bored upperclassmen also lay around on couches or chairs, catching up on either homework or Netflix new releases. Because he’d left his phone at home, he couldn’t really do either. He hadn’t even noticed he’d fallen asleep until the bell rang to wake him up.

Upon waking, he was rushed by a wall of emotion, frustration and sadness and the suppression of both. 

_ Ahsoka. _

He didn’t want to upset her in any way, figuring she had enough to deal with without him adding all of his baggage, but when he saw her walking the hall with her seemingly gallon-sized cup of coffee, he couldn’t help but feel bad. Which he knows she’d punch him for, but he’d never been one to restrain his emotions. 

“Hey, Snips,” he called, catching up to her and steering her by her shoulders away from the shared class they were both headed to, “how about we go get some pancakes?”

She looked at him skeptically, and he didn’t need a verbal sign for him to understand her hesitation immediately. The want to not seem out of the ordinary, to blend into their regular routine.

“When is us skipping class irregular?” He asked with what he hoped was a convincing smile, grabbing the coffee from her hands and taking a sip. Almond milk. Gross. “Besides, how are we supposed to plan to throw a self-coup while also learning about hydroelectric power grids?”

“I don’t know, Skyguy-”

“I’ll pay.”

At that, she let out a defeated, though not resigned, snort and grabbed her coffee back. “You better.”

* * *

Dex’s was an old Americana-type diner about 20 minutes from town, complete with neon lights under the tables that came on during the night and an old jukebox that seemingly only played Elvis and the Beach Boys. The city planner must’ve been on some galaxy-brained shit when they put it there, because just 5 minutes down the road was the drive-in movie theatre (the only movie theatre in a 30-mile radius), just to complete the nostalgia-filled experience. Of course, this was the kind that was exclusively consumed by teenagers, none of whom should actually be filled with such nostalgia. Anakin couldn’t think of one person he followed on Instagram that didn’t have a picture either at the diner or drive-in. 

That didn’t mean that Dex couldn’t make a mean pancake. 

Their usual table, the booth three tables down from the doors, was already littered with breakfast foods, syrups, and drinks by the time Anakin finally worked up the nerve to ask the real question.

“Does this count as brunch? Are we brunch people now, Snips?” 

“Anakin, focus.” 

“Right, sorry,” he nodded, gazing once again at the notebook page Ahsoka had laid out on the table between them, the numbered list mocking him from the paper. 

**ways to wake the bitch up:**

  1. **fuck shit up even more**



“I still think that we could revisit setting a really loud alarm-”

“ _ Anakin.” _

“Yeah, yeah,” he conceded, though it frustrated him that he had to. The entire ride over he’d tried cracking jokes and, yeah, she’d laughed, but not like usual. Not enough. He missed her. 

“You haven’t gotten any new… I don’t know, information? Something that could help us break through the barrier the other-you?” Ahsoka prodded between bites of her heavily syrupped pancakes. Somehow, Anakin didn’t think that visions of flowery fields, laughter, and candle-lit dinners were what Ahsoka wanted to hear at the moment. 

“No, not really,” he dug his fork into his home fries, “what about, like, a seance or something? Do you think we could channel the spirit of other-me through my body?”

“The only witch in this town I know is Talzin, and I feel like that’s more of an aesthetic thing,” Ahsoka hummed, “but maybe you’re on to something? I’ll write it down.”

“Padme would be way better at this than us,” Anakin groaned, resting his chin on his fist, “she’s the best at lists.”

“Yeah, but we agreed that involving her and Ben would just complicate things too much,” Ahsoka said as she wrote, then glared at their criminally short list. 

“I know, sorry, I just didn’t get any sleep last night. Believe it or not, figuring out how to stop time didn’t give me an extra hour of rest.”

“I can believe it,” she laughed, looking out the window. “Do you remember that night we all pulled an all-nighter last year?”

“The one where we beat Call of Duty or the one where we sat on the roof reading shitty internet poetry?”

“Neither. The one where we went to Shaggy Dog and saw that shitty rock band where the guitarist undid a button of his shirt every song?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Do you remember what you said to me halfway through their set?”

He stopped to think for a moment, the night suddenly becoming frustratingly hazy. That had been happening less since everything earlier, but it still bothered him that sometimes he couldn’t remember faces or locations or song lyrics. “I don’t know, probably something about kicking the guy in the nuts if he tried to take you backstage.”

“You told me that if we all got separated in the crowd you would simply fight your way through until you found us again.”

“I feel like that was probably more of a me-complaining-about-the-crowdedness thing than anything else.”

“Probably,” she shrugged, “but you weren’t lying. I don’t think you’ve ever stopped fighting to hold us together.”

“Where’s this coming from, Snips?” He asked, feeling a wave of gratitude for the sentimentalism. 

“Probably the fact that I haven’t slept for more than 3 hours at a time for the past week,” and all of a sudden she smacked the table, and Anakin felt a surge of energy like someone had sent a shockwave to his brain, “Skyguy, I’ve got it!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, scribbling down a hasty option 3 on their note sheet of world-saving tactics. When she was done, she proudly held it up for him to see, beaming behind the page. 

  1. **Anakin goes to bed.**



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking about Anakin suavely dodging the blaster shot without even looking all day.
> 
> I'm so close to watching the apparently terrible Little Italy just to get more Hayden content. I
> 
> 've begun drawing my friends as Star Wars characters to keep myself entertained.


	12. Where Are You? (And I'm So Sorry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief intermission

Ahsoka Tano was on the run. This was kind of necessary since she was spearheading an underground spy network right beneath the totalitarian government’s noses. This noble cause did, sadly, come with some downsides. 

Mostly the fact that she was living in her spaceship, now. 

When she first left the Order, she’d been living credit to credit. Doing odd jobs to make enough money to buy food and a room to sleep in, then repeating the process each day after that. There were times where someone would vaguely recognize her from some long-ago mission and offer her a longer chance, running supplies here or there usually, but these were never the options Ahsoka gravitated towards. She’d walked away. Having a chance given to her just because she’d been with the right people felt like going back on that. 

And then Order 66.

After she’d left the Order she’d hopped around from planet to planet, she’d never strayed from Coruscant for too long. You could call it sentimentality for a life she’d walked away from, or fear to journey into the galaxy by herself even though she’d already seen most of it. She privately chalked it up to the knowledge that Anakin would eventually screw up something that it warranted her making a brief appearance for old time’s sake. 

_ With any luck, this will all be over soon. _

How she wished for that sentiment to have been true. 

Instead, she’d had to leave what she had once considered her home and never look back. Always on the move. 

Living on a ship did have its advantages, though. Because theirs was small, she was afforded the luxury of proximity. 

It was no secret that the Empire wasn’t running as it should. Rumors of the death of Darth Vadar had spread farther than she assumed anyone had cared to admit. Some said he was dead, that he’d been killed by the mysterious rebel alliance. Some said that he had abandoned the Empire all together and was now living as a nomad in the Outer Rim. Some said he was hiding in plain sight, ready to attack the opposition from within. But they all knew he was gone. 

Ahsoka had known that this wasn’t true the second Morai flit past her ship, blissfully unencumbered by the lack of oxygen in space. Good for her. Ahsoka really should stop being surprised by things like that. 

As she’d watched the Conover pass, Ahsoka steadily turned her ship and followed. It took awhile, seeing as the creature couldn’t travel through lightspeed, but what else was Ahsoka going to do with her time? After her previous fight with Anakin… Darth Vadar… whoever… she’d taken herself out of the main fight. She’d still check into the Fulcrum network every once in a while to see that things were still running smoothly, but she hardly ever made contact anymore. That fight had taken something out of her. Not just physically, though there was a toll there too, but having to face off with the man she’d once considered to be family had left a battle scar she couldn’t see closing anytime soon. 

By the time she’d reached Mustafar, she’d resigned herself to a goddess-assigned mission. Because things could never just be easy for her. She’d heard rumors of this planet, the birthplace of Darth Vadar and the fiery home that he’d resigned himself to occupying. It had never made sense to her, seeing how much Anakin had hated Tatooine. Why go somewhere even hotter?

As she landed her ship by the ominous mountain-like palace, which was suspiciously lacking in guards or even droids, she felt the wave of power rolling over her. It was unrecognizable but… still so very much her former master. She’d briefly let herself believe that maybe their fight would also result in his absence from the Empire, but no such luck. Not even a week later, she’d heard stories of a small fishing town in the Mid-Rim invaded by a battalion of Deathtroopers, led by the Lord himself. As she got off the ship, her now-white lightsabers clipped to her belt as a precaution more than a forethought, Morai came to dutifully land on her forearm. 

She couldn’t speak, not in words at least, but the communication flowed through their connection easier than dialogue and the message was clear.  _ There. Be careful.  _

The breaking-in wasn’t the hard part. Ahsoka had snuck into places time and time again. Finding a random Imp and guiding them with the Force to follow her into a supply closet and let her borrow the uniform was a breeze. Which worried her. In her day, she’d come to learn that things heavily guarded were defenseless and things that didn’t need guards were trouble. 

Entering the dark palace, she could hear echoes of long-ago screams, could smell charred flesh and bone. This was an angry place, and as much as she’d learned to control herself and her tidal emotions, there was only so much that she could do. 

The halls whispered to her tales of generation after generation coming here, thinking they were cunning enough to outwit their foe, only to be slaughtered. Over and over. A doomed repetition that nobody ever learned from. 

She would not be next. 

She didn’t like using her lightsabers, had grown accustomed to working without them. Even though they’d been returned to her long ago, and the muscle memory of them still remained, in her time away from the Jedi she’d learned to keep herself alive in more unconventional ways. Even the Force had gone from a reflex to a last resort. Still, they hung heavy on her waist, and she was keenly aware that she should feel more inclined to be using them right now than she was. 

As she made her way to the heart of the palace, following the dark trail that was warning her away, she felt an unmistakable connection. 

The last time she’d felt it was in a Sith Temple on Malachor, and she didn’t like how similar the setting was to this one. The writhing energy she felt now was different, though. When she’d first seen him in his new form, there had still been doubt. Hope. An idealized reality where that wasn’t him and they could just fight like regular enemies. But when she’d looked him in the eyes, had finally made a real connection, their bond that had been forged through the years was turned sharp and offensive. Another weapon. 

This was not the same. It was Anakin, yes, but subdued. She could feel the anger and passion still within, but asleep. Now as at peace as she feared he could ever be. 

She could hear the Daughter, even now, pitying her from a distance. 

She pushed onward. 

The Royal Guard was surrounding the doors that she could feel the dark energy pulsating behind, and it was comically easy for her to be done with them. She’d taken on Sith Lords, Mandalorian warriors, and bounty hunters alike. Silly men in red capes never stood a chance. 

As she looked at the great, almost ridiculously large stone door in front of her, it became clear that this was the point where she could turn back. Though she knew what lay beyond that door, right there was a chance to let it go. Another problem for another Fulcrum. What stake did she have in this war of worlds?

_ I won’t leave you again. Not this time.  _

He didn’t look like how she remembered him. 

When they’d fought, he had been so sinister. He’d always been tall, but on Malachor he’d towered over her, even with her grown lekku and newfound height. He’d cut a menacing figure with electricity crackling around him, his ridiculous cape flowing in the energy and his halved helmet imposing fear she hated admitting she bought into. Every step he’d made had been deliberate and fueled by a power she had always known was inside him but had never seen. He’d always been one of the greatest warriors she’d ever known, but this was another level entirely. 

Inside his hate-fueled palace, he just looked like a man. A barely alive man clinging to life and losing his grip fast. 

He was floating in a bacta vat, which gave him an unfortunate and sickly green tint, not helping her see the man she’d fought in the slightest. It frustrated her to no end that, even now, there was a mask covering the bottom half of his face, as if she’d never get to see him as whole again. Still, she knew it was him. She would know him on any planet, in any reality, and of this she was certain. 

Lined up next to the vat were three prosthetic limbs, equally spaced like soldiers at attention. One she recognized so well that it might as well have been her own limb, a gold and black hand that had always just been  _ his _ hand to her, and two legs that she very much did not remember.

_ What happened to you, Skyguy? _

She’d remembered thinking that when she’d first picked up his signature in the Force, wanting to know how he’d become such a monster, and then again when they’d fought, wanting to know how Anakin Skywalker could turn his back on anyone he’d ever cared about. And now, she just wanted to know who’d hurt him. He’d tried to kill her, and she was just to know why he was hurting. 

The control panel on the side of the room gave the only indication of life, with a steady beeping to monitor breathing and heart rate. Everything else was just… so sterile. 

She knew it would be a mistake to wake him up. Ever since he’d turned, he’d done nothing but bring suffering to the galaxy in a mad dash for power. That didn’t stop her from wanting. She’d always been bad at that, even in the Order. Always  _ wanting _ something; more assignments or more lightsabers or for the Order to be better or for her master to acknowledge her skill. She’d never just been able to simply trust the Force, though she’d wanted to be able to do that, too.

The controls were simple enough. She’d worked with MedCorp clones during her time as a youngling, and knew her way around military-grade hospital gear. So it was truly a surprise that when she pressed the button to open up the vat it simply didn’t. And then, when she pressed it three more times more out of impatience than anything else, it stubbornly remained closed. 

“Some empire,” she grumbled to herself, looking around to assess her options for a Plan B. This could be the Force telling her to stop and turn back now, sure, but what would be the  _ point _ if this was all she was supposed to do? Maybe she wasn’t trusting the Force, but she was trusting the Daughter, who was a living embodiment of the cosmic power. Surely that counted for something. 

The more dangerous option, then. The more Anakin one, she supposed. 

Unclipping one of her lightsabers from her belt felt like a step into the unknown. She’d thought that opening the door was her chance to turn back, or that messing with the control panel, but this must be it. 

She resigned herself to having to talk a once friend and now enemy into just letting her help, she ignited her blade and prepared. Just a slash. Enough to send the system into an override that would wake him up. She just had to be careful not to hit him in the process. 

_ This could go another way, _ she thought,  _ I could end it all right now. The Empire would fall without him. _

She knew she would never, could never be capable of it, but it was an idea. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Attack. 

It was… frustrating, to say the least, when she pressed her blade forward only for it to not make contact. In shock, she looked down at where her lightsaber should be pressing through the transparisteel tube, only to see her blade cut short an inch away from the surface. Thrusting it forward more did nothing but shorten her blade by as much. 

Slashing the surface of the tank in a fit of aggression did nothing to relieve her anger. 

Using the Force to throw the monitor screen of the control panel at the tank, only for it to also bounce off an inch above the surface didn’t help either. 

“What are you playing at, Skyguy?” She called in frustration. Noone could hear her. This base was all but deserted, nothing but a ghost crew running it, and if someone did happen to see the mess she’d left outside, she could take them. 

_ Be careful. _

_She was tired of being careful._ _She wanted to do something that mattered._

“Throw me a bone, Anakin,” She grumbled, reaching out to lay a hand on the tank, surprised when it went through the previously impenetrable outer barrier and landed on the transparisteel. 

If she was still a kid, still shiny and optimistic, she would take note of the fact that the contact sparked something within her, some tug at their long-ago bond that begged her to continue and run with it. If she was a cynic she would chalk it up to a fool’s dream. She was tired of the labels and the sides. So she just dropped her forehead onto the clear exterior, more as an anchor than anything else, and looked for the connection she missed so much. 

_ All of a sudden, she could feel the cut-off. The Force was still buzzing around her in the air, but she couldn’t access it. She couldn’t feel beings throughout the galaxy, or even on the planet. Around her, the world was unfamiliar. It could've been a Mid-Rim planet, with all its greenery, but it was too industrialized. And yet so ancient. Not landing platforms. No ships or droids insight. Where was this? _

_ The world shifted around her, though she could tell they were still on the same planet. A young boy playing some kind of sport with an uncanny resemblance to Anakin, though at a much younger age than she’d ever seen him at, was guarding a netted box as a young girl with familiar eyes kicked a ball at him. _

_ “You look like an angel.” _

_ The world shifted again, and now she could see four people moving down an empty street, two on two-wheeled self-transports and the other two four-wheeled boards. Though she didn’t move, she found herself keeping time with them. One was still Anakin, still young but far more recognizable now. The other boy was unmistakable as Obi-Wan, with a familiar serene presence and knowing smile. Next to him was Padme, looking as regal as ever, even out of her senator garb. And on the end was Ahsoka, though not as she’d ever seen herself, laughing along with whatever was being said.  _

**_Anakin, what are you doing?_ **

_ Around her, another shift, and she was in a parking lot, intruding on what felt like a private moment. This otherworldly version of herself and Anakin lay on the roof of their transport, pointing up at the stars above them. Ahsoka wanted to reach out and tell them that this wasn’t real, to tell Anakin to  _ stop it _ but she found that nothing was coming out of her mouth. Instead, she had to watch in what she hated to acknowledge as jealousy as some other version of herself got to live a life of peace while she’d had to experience the loss of everyone close in her life.  _

_ It wasn’t fair. _

Suddenly she was back on Mustafar. In the dark chamber where her former friend lay almost lifeless floating in front of her. She didn’t agree with this other world he’d built for himself, couldn’t see why he didn’t just try to fix the one he’d broken in the first place. But… she understood. Seeing Padme and Obi-Wan, even if it wasn’t how she knew them, she understood. Still, she couldn’t let it stand. 

“Wait for me, Skyguy,” she said, her hand one last time to the vat, “you can do better.”

* * *

That was months ago. Months spent hovering in Mustafar’s atmosphere as to not be picked up by scanners, leaving only briefly to gather supplies, then returning to continue her work. She meditated more in those few months than she had in her entire life. Morai would come by, every so often, and offer her little more than a ruffling of feathers or a knowing nod, telling her if she was on the right path or not. But she would not be dismayed. She’d dropped out of the main fight, but there was still one for her to be a part of. One that could turn the tide for good. 

_ If the Emperor’s watchdog is seen helping the rebels, it will all be over.  _ This was the mantra she repeated to herself. Over and over and over. 

“BD-9,” she called out, focused intently on working with the faulty wiring in the belly of the ship, “Make a note: next time we make a supply run we need to pick up some new baffles. These are wearing out.” 

Her small droid, one she’d picked up at a market for companionship more than anything else, just chirped happily and climbed onto her shoulder, the blueprints of the engine projected for her. She didn’t need them, but she was glad he was enjoying himself. 

These were how the days would go. If she wasn’t eating or sleeping, she was meditating. If she got frustrated, she would work on the ship or go through her forms. Over and over and over. 

Even finding Anakin’s signature in the Force, pinpointing its exact location, had taken ages. After that, she’d had to work through wall after wall they’d both put up, dismantling them on her own just to get access. This process involved self-reflection –something she’d never been great at– and patience – also something she wasn’t known for. 

But eventually, it worked. It was all she could do to not whoop in excitement when she could feel the last barrier coming down. She could feel it like another doorway, waiting for her to enter and change the course of this new world’s history. One chance. She knew she wouldn’t be allowed in again. Another chance to turn back and leave it all as-is. Let him hide away for the rest of his days. One less problem to deal with. 

She looked down at BD-9, whose glassy eyes she’d grown so used to. And then at Morai, who’d joined her for the occasion, who she knew would follow her through the door if she chose to enter. 

One chance. 

She pressed onward. 

* * *

_ You’re trapped in an alternate universe with one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy.  _

_ Have you noticed anything weird lately? _

_ It can be a solution. _

* * *

Leaving the fate of her whole galaxy to a younger, untrained, scared version of herself didn’t seem like the best idea. But, when she looked down again to see that Morai had disappeared, and she could feel that it was to that other world, she knew that it would be fine. 

Or, at least, she had hope. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By far the longest chapter in this story. I just... Missed her.


	13. I Know Myself Like No One Else (And I Hate Every Second)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin, meet Anakin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title ALSO from Thrashville 1/3 by Prince Daddy & The Hyena. Can you tell I've been playing that song a lot while writing this?

Anakin tried to picture what a normal teen would be doing on a Friday night.

Going to their high school football game, maybe. Sneaking a little bit of alcohol they had to steal from their parent's liquor cabinet inside a Gatorade bottle with them. Tailgating beforehand and painting their face their school colors.

Or maybe a movie night with friends. Some big blockbuster that only just opened the week before, something with superheroes and bright colors. Dinner after, at someplace kind of cheap and greasy like Moe’s or McDonald’s, but it feels like a 5-star meal with the right company.

He didn’t think that desperately trying to fall asleep while your friend peered intently at you, like you were some experiment she was waiting to get results for, was anywhere on the list. 

They’d been at this for what must’ve been half an hour. No combination of white noises played on YouTube, microwaved tea, and reading his AP Gov textbook did anything. 

“Do you want me to just deck you? Would that work?” Ahsoka asked from the foot of his bed, where she was leaning against a wall and googling lucid dreaming on her phone, “or would the universe not consider that dreaming.”

“People in comas don’t dream, Snips,” he muttered from under the pillow he’d dropped on top of his face, “I don’t think this is going to work.”

“How about chloroform?”

“Where are  _ you _ going to get chloroform at 4 PM on a Friday?”

“Okay,  _ first _ of all,” she held up her finger for emphasis, not breaking eye contact with her phone, “I don’t think there’s a ‘good time’ to buy chloroform without it being at least a little weird,” she held up a second finger, “ _ second, _ I don’t need to get it anywhere. You just need ice, acetone, and bleach.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” he sat up, more amused than concerned. 

“I’m in AP Chem, headass,” she laughed, playfully kicking him in the shins, “and I like googling things.”

“You’re a danger to society, that’s what you are.”

“You’re one to talk,” she rolled her eyes, “at least my alternate-universe persona isn’t a mass murderer.” 

That was a conversation killer if even Anakin heard one. On that somber note, he let his head drop back onto the pillows below. He was happy to see her in a better mood, more willing to joke about their situation, but he couldn’t lie and say that that one didn’t sting just a little. He couldn’t address the fact that he was starting to doubt that his other-self was all that bad, either. 

_ Not a day has gone by where I haven’t thought of you. _

“Sorry, bad timing,” Ahsoka apologized, setting her phone down on the bed, “you know I don’t think you’re that guy.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, returning her earlier kick with one of his own, “what I don’t know is how I’m supposed to force myself to fall asleep and make contact with him. And even if it works, what am I supposed to say? Like, ‘Hey, you’re a homicidal maniac and my friend says your friend wants you to stop that. Anyway, please don’t kill me’?”

“It’s a start,” Ahsoka shrugged, then realized it wasn’t enough so she moved to lay down next to him, making a big show of pushing him over so she had room, “you’ll know what to do. You’re a charming guy.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“See! There’s that award-winning charisma,” she beamed, “I mean, when have you not had ladies just  _ swooning _ over you? Like that one girl last year… you know, the foreign exchange student-”

“Miraj?”

“ _ Yes! _ Miraj,” Ahsoka smacked his chest likely. So much violence, today. “God, she was a piece of work.”

“What was the thing she got absolutely torn apart in your APUSH class for, again?”

“She said that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery and that the South had a point,” Ahsoka rolled her eyes, “I don’t know why you let her get away.”

“Some people are to progressive, even for me,” he lamented, placing the back of his hand on his forehead in the way he remembered 30s Hollywood starlets doing. The two of them divulged into a fit of laughter before coming to, looking back up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. Always to the stars, with those two. 

“How am I supposed to do this, Snips?”

“You have superpowers,” she shrugged, “figure it out.”

“No, not just that. I mean, how am I supposed to face down against another version of me?”  _ Who I don’t even know for sure is 100% evil, _ was the part he left unspoken,  _ who we only know one version of, and I know that you want to believe yourself but you haven’t seen all the things I have. What if we’re wrong? _

Ahsoka looked at him with a gaze he couldn’t quite pin down. It could’ve been hope, it could’ve been pity. Then she grabbed his hand and squeezed it reassuringly, “I’ll go in with you.”

“What, we’re gonna Pacific Rim this bitch and dream together?” He huffed out a laugh.

“Yeah, sure. Why not?” Ahsoka arched a bleached eyebrow, “We can already levitate stuff and stop time. What’s one more thing.”

And he knew what the look was now. Self-assurance. It felt good, like the first thing to be a concrete fact since this whole mess had started. And it was contagious, her confidence, enough to make him believe they could do anything, too.

“Okay. What’s more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She looked away from him, settling into the bed and not letting go of his hand. Constant assurance. “Because we’re superheroes now, we’re both going to fall asleep on the count of three, and we’ll be in the same dream.”

Absolutely contagious. 

“One,” she said, and Anakin closed his eyes as well.

“Two,” he replied, giving her hand another squeeze and letting her know that they were in this together until the end.

“Three,” they both said, together, and the world became a void. 

* * *

Anakin had been in this dream before. Just on opposite sides. Around him was a black, empty expanse, filled with nothing but reflective water where he was standing. The effect was off-putting, to say the least. 

He was sitting cross-legged, hands placed on his knees like a monk in meditation. It bothered him that the rings on his fingers caught light, though there was no source to be seen. No anything, to be seen, for that matter. 

It took him only a second to find Ahsoka. She was in his reflection, much like last time, except now there was no other version facing her. She was simply sitting opposite him, on the other side of this barrier, also cross-legged and looking at him. He put a hand against the crystalline water, an action she mirrored, and though there was no physical way to tell that they’d made a connection, he could feel the reassurance she was giving off. 

When he looked back up, he was face to face with himself, mirroring his position. 

Well, another-himself. 

He wondered if this was how Ahsoka had felt, when she’d confronted a version of her that was not her, but only slightly. He was left to pick apart the ways that they were different, instead of the ways they were the same. The person facing him had strange clothes, the kind that he would see in a Buddhist monastery or a D&D campaign. Heavy, dark robes that looked like they were reinforced enough to be protective. He looked older, too, though not by much. His hair was longer in this vision, reminding him almost of an 80s woman’s perm. A scar crossed his right eyebrow, right where his own was adorned with a silver stud. His eyes, though the same shape and placement, were an eerie, unapproachable yellow. 

Anakin kept his hand on Ahsoka’s, desperate for the strength to flow through him.

“Hi.” Was all his reflective-self had to say.

“Who are you?” He asked, which he immediately felt like an idiot for.  _ He’s me. Obviously. That wasn’t what you needed to know. Why was that what you led with? _

“My name’s Anakin Skywalker. I was a Knight for the Jedi Order.” His other-self answered candidly, and he didn’t know how he knew but it rang true. This was the mass murderer? He looked like he was 20.

“What’s that?” He found himself asking, even though he  _ knew _ that wasn’t what he’d come here for. 

“A group of people who are attuned with the Force in a way that allows them to use it in a way that helps the people around them.” He watched as his other-self templed his hands in his lap. Then he added with a smirk, “So basically they can jump really far and levitate things.”

“So why’d you leave?” He asked, hoping to get himself back on track. 

“Because they lost sight of what was really important,” and before Anakin could process the more ominous tone used for that  _ incredibly _ vague sentence, other-Anakin was looking around with a bemused expression. “Did you do this all yourself?”

“What?”

“This place. This world between worlds. At your age, I could never just conjure something so specific and vast, even with the focused training of the Order. How are you doing this?”

Anakin fought the urge to look down, to catch a glimpse of Ahsoka as a way to steady himself. Even as he battled with himself, he watched the sickly yellow eyes of his doppelganger travel down his arm to where it connected with the water, and to Ahsoka’s underneath. 

“Ahsoka,” the other-him said with a frustrated sigh, “why am I not surprised? No matter.”

Not having any reason to hide his assistance, Anakin looked down to Ahsoka for guidance, only to see her open her mouth to yell some sense into him before vanishing without fanfare, not even a ripple in the water to signify her having been there at all. 

“What did you  _ do? _ ” He roared, wanting to surge forward and tackle the other man by the throat. He found this impossible, only able to move his head. “ _ Where did she go?” _

“Relax,” not-Anakin said in a calm voice, and Anakin was suddenly extremely compelled to do as he asked, though he fought it, “she’s fine. Back where she belongs. She had no business here.”

“What are you doing?” He finally found himself begging, getting to the question he’d been dancing around this whole process. He wanted Ahsoka back. He couldn’t do this right if he was alone. “What’s going on?!”

Not-Anakin gave him a sad look, the same kind with mixing emotions that Ahsoka had given him earlier. He wanted to tear it off his smug face. He wanted to be done with this.  _ Where was she? _

“Your rage is getting the better of you,” the other-him commented cooly, resting his chin on his fist in a way Anakin had seen himself doing before. He didn’t like the similarities. He didn’t want to be the same. He tried to calm himself down. “No, it’s okay. Feel free to let it. You just need to channel it in the right direction.” Not-Anakin gestured to his hand, still stuck to the surface of the water where it had been connected to Ahsoka’s a moment ago. “Move your hand.”

“You don’t  _ want _ me to be able to move my hand,” Anakin threatened. 

“Yes, I do. I just want you to earn it.” 

Anakin almost yelled in frustration, but he held back. It’s what Ahsoka would do. If the other him wanted to play mind games, if that’s what it took, then so be it. He focused on his hand, intently on only it, and willed it to move. It didn’t budge. 

“Your emotions,” his other self guided, “let them fuel you.”

Emotions? He could do emotions. This was Anakin “voted-Biggest-Emo-and-Dramatic-Piece-of-Shit-in-his-friend-group-3-years-running” Skywalker. (They’d actually voted.)

How about the rage of your best friend being taken away from you and you didn’t know how to get her back or how to find her?

How about the frustration of having the  _ massive _ secret that’s potentially world-shattering and you can’t tell your girlfriend or your other best friend?

Or maybe the heartache he had to feel watching Ahsoka struggle with this even though it wasn’t her mess in the first place?

Was that enough  _ emotion _ for you?

He barely even registered how his hand flew from the water. 

“Good,” the other-him smiled, seemingly satisfied for now. “That’ll do.”

“What do you  _ want?” _ Anakin tried again. He felt calmer now, having pushed his feelings to their boiling point for a split second and was now letting them simmer once again. 

“I just want what you have,” other-him said, and again Anakin could feel the truth behind his words.

“You want to live in a nowhere town and have a dad that walked out when you were a kid?”

“At least you still have a mom,” the other-him smiled bitterly, “and friends like Ahsoka and Ben. And Padme. I’d much rather live in a town like yours than through a life like mine was.”

“Was?” Anakin asked, and he could still hear the blood rushing through his veins, but he could also feel it slowing down. “Past tense?”

Not-Anakin shifted again, this time to a form that reminded Anakin much more of himself. No straight back or sinister glare. Just a guy. “I created the world you call home. Like a pocket dimension, I guess. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know how I did it. I just know that all of the good things in my life are invested into this world, and you trying to ‘save it’, if that’s what you think you’re doing, is only making it worse.”

“We were trying to stop it because you can’t just run away from your problems. The Ahsoka from your universe came to mine-”

“What?” He asked, this time his eyes flaring dangerously. This was the Anakin he’d been afraid of. “When?  _ How?” _

“I don’t know I just-”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll just start over and-”

“ _ Wait!” _ Anakin called, surprised that it worked and his reflection looked at him, as if shocked that someone would dare interrupt him, “why does that mean you have to ‘start over’?”

Other-Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose, a motion Anakin had seen Ben do countless times, and he was surprised to hear a mechanical whir when he removed his hand again. 

“You know how Ahsoka gets. If she gets an idea she won’t drop it until she’s satisfied that she’s completed her mission.”

“I know that I’m the same way,” Anakin challenged, “I know that’s why we make such a great team.”

Other-Anakin looked at him for a moment then down at the non-reflective water, a hint of a smile on his face. “Yeah. I guess that is true.”

Anakin looked down, longing to see Ahsoka again, just wanting the reassurance of a friendly face. Looking back up, he could see the other version of himself watching, seemingly attuned to his thought process. 

“You can bring her back yourself. You are me, after all.”

And wasn’t that just the one thing he’d been afraid to hear the whole time? But something about the kindness it was said with, the lack of bite behind the words, made the blow land softer. 

How about the love he felt for the friends he’d made along the way? 

How about the longing in his heart every time he was apart from them?

Ahsoka was back in the blink of an eye, mid-movement like she didn’t even know she’d been gone. He put his hand back on the water, but found he didn’t need the contact to feel comfortable anymore. 

“You’re not going to, like, body-snatch me and take over my life, right? Like, I can just keep doing what I’m doing and things will just be normal?”

He could tell that his other-self realized he’d won. His smile was that of a dormant wolf. Satisfied and friendly, but capable of more. 

“I can’t explain it right, but yes. It’s more like I’m watching in a third-person, omniscient kind of way. It’s just…” he looked up to find the right words, “It’s therapeutic. I messed some things up that I can’t go back and change so,” he looked at Anakin, “it’s nice to see you not make the same mistakes.”

He felt fingers begin to twine through his, and looking down he saw that Ahsoka’s hand had begun moving through the water. Time was almost up. A decision needed to be made.

“Okay.”

He locked eyes with the other-him. 

“Okay. Business as usual. No more apocalypse.”

And there was that sad, sad smile of someone who was looking for their second chance. 

He could feel Ahsoka squeezing his hand, tugging ever so gently. 

“Just… One more thing,” he said before he thought better of it. He had to know if they were to be one-and-the-same. “ _ Have _ you killed people before?”

He didn’t like how caught off-guard other-Anakin was. He also didn’t like how quickly he recovered.

“Yes.”

Anakin could feel himself being pulled through the surface of the water, inch by inch; could see Ahsoka standing up and pulling with all her might. Right before his head was submerged, though, he heard his other self call out. 

“But so has Ahsoka.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this one ALSO got surprisingly, delightfully long. I know I say this like every other chapter, but this was one of my favorites to write. It's all about the, how do you say, emotional manipulation.


	14. Come As You Are (As You Were; As I Want You To Be)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because, for all she had witnessed, he didn’t seem phased by it in the slightest. She had faith, but he was always one to wear his emotions on his sleeve. He was certainly not subtle enough to mask his fear from her, of all people. 
> 
> What she’d seen, she knows he hadn’t.
> 
> So, when he’d half-heartedly dodged some of her questions (the important ones, mostly) she was disappointed but not surprised. 
> 
> “Who was he?”
> 
> “Me. We knew that.”
> 
> “Yeah, but not you you. What does he want?”
> 
> “I don’t know. I think he just wants all of this to stay how it is.”
> 
> “Yeah, but how do we stop him?”
> 
> “I don’t know, Snips.”
> 
> She’d kept pressing. Demanding to know everything he’d learned. Upset when she could tell he was still hiding things. She’d thought they were past this. 
> 
> Instead, on the third time she’d asked what are we going to do? he’d looked at her in exasperation, before getting up to grab the tennis ball on his desk and setting it on the ground, sitting down on the floor and clearly expecting her to do the same. 
> 
> “I think I know how we can deal with the whole accidentally-stopping-time-and-also-telekinesis thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (As A Friend, As A Known Enemy)
> 
> Chapter Title from Come As You Are by Nirvana
> 
> -
> 
> I don't think I'm emotionally prepared for tomorrow's episode.

Ahsoka was sitting on the floor of Anakin’s room. This was not an uncommon occurrence. Between impromptu sleepovers, escalated pillow fight (pillow  _ warfare, _ more like) aftermath, or hours spent on homework, Ahsoka was familiar with the lay of the land. Desk and bed and nightstand and stars. 

The unfamiliar part was Anakin across from her, and the tennis ball between them that they were both staring fixedly at. 

After they’d woken up, after a brief silence to take in the fact that it had even worked in the first place, Ahsoka had launched into question after question. 

She had been there, yes, but not enough. She’d been trapped apart from Anakin, forced to watch him like looking through a mirror. She had unshakable faith in him, always, but watching him talk to… whatever he was talking to sent a shiver up her spine. She’d had trouble making out the form of the figure he’d been talking to through the water, as it appeared murkier closer to him. At first, he’d appeared like a reflection of Anakin, just as she’d once seen a reflection of herself, this one also being older, a bit more hardened, and in armored robes. Then it had shifted, the same person but older still, hair longer and scars more numerous; the armor exchanged for dark robes. Yet again, it had changed, this time to something more sinister, to which the air seemed darker and more dangerous around. He hadn’t aged or died, but the glowing yellow eyes were enough to signal that this wasn’t the same person anymore. And, finally, she’d seen something she could only describe as sinister. Black, glossy armor, a helmet to hide the face, and the true presence of power. 

This was the point where she’d started pulling Anakin back to her, back to being awake. 

Because, for all she had witnessed, he didn’t seem phased by it in the slightest. She had faith, but he was always one to wear his emotions on his sleeve. He was certainly not subtle enough to mask his fear from her, of all people. 

What she’d seen, she knows he hadn’t.

So, when he’d half-heartedly dodged some of her questions (the  _ important  _ ones, mostly) she was disappointed but not surprised. 

_ “Who was he?” _

_ “Me. We knew that.” _

_ “Yeah, but not  _ you _ you. What does he want?” _

_ “I don’t know. I think he just wants all of this to stay how it is.” _

_ “Yeah, but how do we stop him?” _

_ “I don’t know, Snips.” _

She’d kept pressing. Demanding to know everything he’d learned. Upset when she could tell he was still hiding things. She’d thought they were past this. 

Instead, on the third time, she’d asked  _ what are we going to  _ **_do_ ** _? _ he’d looked at her in exasperation, before getting up to grab the tennis ball on his desk and setting it on the ground, sitting down on the floor and clearly expecting her to do the same. 

“I think I know how we can deal with the whole accidentally-stopping-time-and-also-telekinesis thing.”

It wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted to hear, sure, but it was better than nothing. So, she sat down across from him and looked at him as if to say  _ I’m listening. _ He looked unsure of himself, not a reassuring thing, almost like he was going to do something he wasn’t even 80% sure was going to work. Still, he had a determination underneath, like he’d seen it done before. Ahsoka knew she’d blipped out of the dream-world for a second, but for how long? What had she missed?

That was 20 minutes and two shots ago. 20 increasingly tedious minutes of her watching Anakin watch the lime green ball. And some smuggled tequila. For science. Mostly for her boredom, actually, but for science, too. It was Friday night, anyway, and Shmi had a late shift.

She was reminded, suddenly, of the Vine of the guy claiming he could do a kick-flip, frustratedly yelling at his friends for doubting him. That video had been a running joke between her and Anakin for weeks as they were trying to learn how to do said trick. Frustrating and tedious, but worth the payoff in the end. 

Faith. Always faith in Skyguy. 

She didn’t miss the way he took another deep breath and placed his hand deliberately on the ground, focused on it for a brief moment, frowned deeply at something she couldn’t see, and then in a split second, the ball began floating off the ground. Not aggressively, not like the parking lot. Just simply. 

“Shit,” she said, impressed being the only word to accurately describe her tone. She reached out a hand, ever so gently, to poke it, see if it would hold, and though it swung a bit it regained its center like it was on a string. 

_ “Dude, _ ” she grinned, this time smacking the ball to him, which he easily caught with his own smile, “dude!” she repeated, louder this time. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, clearly satisfied with himself, all the previous frustration gone. Experimentally, he tossed the ball up into the air, his right hand still placed firmly on the ground, and Ahsoka watched it go up, up, up, and then stay completely still. 

“How are you doing that?” She prodded, standing up to investigate further, all her annoyance at his lack of answers gone. This was progress. 

“Here, I can show you,” he said, and looking down she saw the way that he was so excited, and it hit her once again that they were kids. His wide eyes expanded like saucers and his willingness to share that feeling with her. 

“You’re going to be  _ pissed _ when I can do it better than you,” she teased before sitting down again. 

* * *

Listening to Anakin explain this process, Ahsoka could feel that something was wrong. Not because anything he said was inherently sinister, or honestly even shady in the slightest, but just a gut feeling at her screaming  _ nonononono. _

_ You just have to think of something that gives you emotions, if that makes sense? Like that one scene in the third Harry Potter, where he does the Patronus thing? I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.  _

What he didn’t say, though, that was the suspicious part. Because even without him admitting to it, Ahsoka knew that this was the other-Anakin’s teachings. She knew that Anakin hadn’t known how to do this before talking to him, and now he was spitting it out like he was keyed into some kind of sage wisdom.

Ahsoka had wisdom, too. Like her knowledge that that  _ guy _ was a murderer who’d made an empire off the backs of countless deaths, and then just up and left. Her noble wisdom was that whatever he’d said wasn’t to be trusted. 

Still, she tried, if not for her, then for Anakin. Because even if she didn’t agree with him, this would not divide them. They’d already spent enough time keeping things from each other, she would not doubt him again. 

So she looked at the obnoxiously neon ball that was only the size of her closed fist and begged it to move. Screamed at it to. A medium-strength wind could do what she could not, apparently. 

“I hate to break it to you, Skyguy, but I don’t think it’s working.” 

“But it  _ did _ ,” he protested, the bag of chips in his hand sounding more like a bomb siren, “It will.” More conviction. More self-assuredness. 

Ahsoka tries again, tapping into her admittedly large well of frustration, trying to focus the tennis ball again. It feels futile, but she realizes that that’s just another thing she can use. 

_ Please, _ she asks to herself,  _ let this work. I’m fucking pissed, too. I have anger to spare. Let this at least go right. _

_ What do you think you’re doing? _ And this time it’s not her internal monologue speaking, but rather the ethereal voice of the not-her that appeared in her dream. The green and white, still-healing tattoo on her forearm burns again, and she clenches her fist as if she’s been attacked.  _ This is not the way. _

“Snips,” he asks, concern evident in his voice. Always with his heart on his sleeve. “You good?”

“Did that guy teach you this, Anakin?” She asks, absentmindedly rubbing her tattoo. 

He stiffens immediately, clearly uncomfortable with addressing the truth. Good. He should be. He should feel like an asshole for trusting the bad guy. “What if I did?”

It’s another thing entirely to hear him admit it. 

“I don’t know,” she throws her head back in exasperation. How could he not see the problem here? “Don’t you think it’s probably not a good idea to take advice from the psychotic murderer who kills people?”

“And why should we trust your guy, huh?” He asks. Why was he getting defensive over a  _ killer? _ “I mean, who’s to say she isn’t the actual bad guy and she’s just using us. Like, if he’s so bad then  _ why _ is she trying to wake him up? What’s up with that?”

“Are you fucking serious?” She asks, disbelief clouding her judgment. Was this a joke? It had to be, right? Surely, he couldn’t mean it. 

“Well, what evidence do we have that says we should believe her?” 

“A lot, actually,” Ahsoka couldn’t help but laugh, because this had to be a joke. There’s no way that he’d pick  _ now _ of all times to throw  _ all _ common sense out the window. “How about the explanation she gave me for why we need to wake him up, which is a lot more than you’re offering up,  _ by the way. _ Or, like the fact that  _ you yourself _ had a breakdown  _ last night _ because of all the fucked up shit you saw. Stuff I saw, too. Is that enough  _ evidence _ for you,  _ Skyguy, _ ” and she resents the way that the nickname comes out like an insult. She doesn’t mean it to. 

“I’m just saying that neither of us has all the pieces,  _ Snips, _ ” he says, eerily calm, the same biting tone used for the nickname. “You know, for all that you guys rag on me for going into things blind and not thinking things through, you’re  _ really _ trusting the first person to tell you anything and not considering many other alternatives while  _ I’m _ just trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.”

“Anakin he’s evil!” And she didn’t know when, but somehow they’re both standing, the volume of their argument escalating. If she were paying attention, she would see the tennis ball and other assorted knick-knacks from shelves rising, shaky, and she would know that it wasn’t Anakin losing control this time but her. 

“From my point of view, so is she!” 

“Why are you being such an asshole about this?!” She yells, and just as he raises a hand to dig back into her, a shrill chime calls out from her phone, and before anything else can happen, they both see the name at the top, like a beacon of light in the hurricane they were creating. Padme. 

Not breaking eye contact until the last second, she bends down to grab the phone, only to be greeted by several other notifications she had disregarded in favor of their afternoon adventures. 

Two other missed calls.

Seven unopened text messages. 

**Padme:**

**Hey**

**Ahsoka ??**

**Ahsoka can u pls call me when u get a chance**

**Are u with Anakin?**

**Hey are u guys ok? Anakin isn’t responding to my calls or texts or like anything I’m getting worried**

**Is something wrong? Ben says that he hasn’t heard from either of u guys either and i’m starting to get really freaked out. Pls pick up**

**I’m on my way home.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> girls are fightinggggggg
> 
> -
> 
> fr tho somebody actually said in the comments "maybe Padme can come home from he debate early" and... I mean...


	15. I want everything to change (and stay the same)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was torture, really, having to sit on the other side of the door and listen to Ahsoka talk to Padme. He yearned to hear her voice, even if it had only been two days since he’d heard it last. Why couldn’t she just stay in here and put it on speaker? He didn’t even need to talk, he could be quiet. 
> 
> (That was a lie, which he didn’t want to acknowledge. He knew that if that had happened, he wouldn’t wait two seconds before he could deliver a long-overdue profession of admiration for his wonderful, beautiful, intelligent girlfriend.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Coffee's For Closers by Fall Out Boy

It was torture, really, having to sit on the other side of the door and listen to Ahsoka talk to Padme. He yearned to hear her voice, even if it had only been two days since he’d heard it last. Why couldn’t she just stay in here and put it on speaker? He didn’t even need to talk, he could be quiet. 

(That was a lie, which he didn’t want to acknowledge. He knew that if that had happened, he wouldn’t wait two seconds before he could deliver a long-overdue profession of admiration for his wonderful, beautiful, intelligent girlfriend.)

He strained to hear her through the door he was leaning against, under some false idea that if he was  _ really _ quiet he’d be able to hear the tiny speakers on Ahsoka’s phone thrum with her voice. Instead, he could only catch half-phrases from Ahsoka.

“We’re fine-”

“-lost his phone. Don’t worry-”

“-Ben did  _ what?-” _

“-nothing much. We went to Dex’s earlier today-”

“- _ yes _ , I’ll tell him-”

Tell him what?  _ Tell him what? _ He knew that he could cave then and there, let the door fly open and jump in on the call, tell Padme that maybe she should come home or maybe he’d come and meet her. He had a weekend to burn. Or maybe he’d just go straight for his own phone, call her himself. Tell her everything, and be satisfied to hear her agree that,  _ Yes, Ani, you should look at all the angles. How diplomatic of you. _

It was a nice idea, in theory, but he knew he wouldn’t. If not just for the sake of keeping from drawing her into this whole mess, then at least to keep Ahsoka from actually tearing his throat out. 

_ Why are you being such an asshole about this? _

He didn’t know. Maybe it was because having to look himself in the face changed the whole game, made him realize that this was a human issue and not just some distant dilemma that they could conquer in a three-act structure. Maybe it was the constant onset of visions, ones that were progressively getting more and more sympathetic that he couldn’t imagine Ahsoka seeing, too. 

Maybe he was just trying to prove that he was a good guy.

He’d always known right from wrong; his mother had raised him well. And he’d always fought with those beliefs in mind. Ready to throw a punch in defense of his friends, take one in return because fair is fair. He shouldn’t have to prove himself, but lately, he’d found he needed the reassurance of being The Good Guy more and more. 

In front of him, the tennis ball was doing air-parkour. Up, every time Ahsoka paused and he thought he could hear the faintest trace of Padme’s voice. Down, every time he couldn’t. Circling with his thoughts that were getting more and more jumbled by the second. 

He and Ahsoka had argued before, sure, but so do all friends. He’s picked more fights with Ben than he cared to admit, mostly just out of desire to spark a reaction. It didn’t mean they didn’t all pile into his car afterward and go out for burgers. Anakin couldn’t imagine that Ahsoka was in the mood to go out for food, right now. 

Up and down and up and down and up. 

“Yeah, no, we’re at his place. He’s passed out and I’ve got this ridiculous Chem project-”

She wasn’t as good of a liar as she thought she was. And that wasn’t a bad thing, Anakin wasn’t a good liar, either. Maybe even worse, actually. His attempts to keep his relationship with Padme a private affair had fallen through in a spectacular fashion, almost everyone seeing through it immediately. In a shocking twist, it was actually Ben who was the one most likely to get away with something. Probably because nobody would suspect him of misdeed in the first place, but still. 

Still, it didn’t sound like Ahsoka was required to do much more convincing, as it sounded like she and Padme had moved on to a new subject entirely. 

Maybe she was better at lying than he was giving her credit for. Maybe he could just see through her bullshit because he already knew her so well. 

He wasn’t going to apologize. Mostly because he wasn’t wrong. Or, at least, not totally. In retrospect, it’s  _ probably _ fair for her to be frustrated at his sudden change of heart, especially since he hadn’t just come out and said it. If he could see through her, she could cut through him. She would know if he was hiding something, too. Maybe if he’d been honest. Maybe if he’d brought it up in a more natural way. Maybemaybemaybemaybe.

Around and around and around.

Was it such a radical idea, wanting to start over?

Anakin wanted to start over, constantly, and he probably hadn’t been through half the things the other-him had. He’d wished for a new life because he failed his math test last month. He couldn’t imagine what being lit on fire could spark in a man. If you had the power to go back and change everything for the better, wouldn’t you?

Is it so bad if he’s trying to be better?

“I don’t know, he seems pretty out of it. Are you sure-”

_ So has Ahsoka. _

That was the thing he couldn’t get out of his head. What did that mean? Yes, there’d been piling evidence that other-Anakin had done some not-so-great things, but what evidence did they have about other-Ahsoka at all? The only things he’d seen were brief visions of her leaving (and the  _ pain _ that came with that) and flashes of them fighting alongside each other, laughing together (and the  _ love _ that engulfed those memories). Why were they at odds in the other world (real world?) if he’d only ever seen evidence of friendship?

This was, of course, disregarding one extremely crucial piece of the puzzle. A vehement, angry, heartfelt fight that still burned like a fresh wound. Electric walls and broken promises and black and white and red and black and white. 

Around and around and up and down. 

What had happened to them?

What was happening to them now?

A warning knock came a second before the door started opening. He didn’t need it. He’d felt it the second she’d decided to put her hand on the doorknob. The ball dropped from where it had been hovering over his bed, a soft thunk left in its wake. He didn’t miss her noticing it, something he couldn’t place present behind her gaze.

“Skyguy, wake up,” she called in a manner he found  _ extremely _ unconvincing, though the message was clear.  _ Play along.  _ “Your girlfriend misses you too much to let you get a full nap.”

He tried not to spring off the floor.

He tried not to grapple the phone out of her hand. 

“Morning, gorgeous,” he said the moment he pressed the phone to his ear. He could see Ahsoka roll her eyes in his peripherals before she flopped onto his bed. He could also feel the hazy cloud of  _ frustrated _ clinging to her like static electricity. Good. That was better than the lightning snap of  _ angry _ that had been there before she’d stepped out into the hallway to take the call. He didn’t follow her lead, opting to just lean against the door again, though standing this time. 

“Ani, it’s 5 in the evening,” Padme’s voice came like a lifeline through the speaker. He could see her now, in a hotel room that was purposefully devoid of personality, one that she’d probably be sharing with Satine or maybe Chuchi, that freshman who was also on her debate team. She’d be leaning against the window frame, looking out over the terrible parking-lot view as if she could catch sight of his house from the third floor of the Hilton.  _ Shit, maybe Ahsoka was right,  _ he thought, because all he wanted to do at that moment was bare his soul to her. 

He looked over to Ahsoka, who’d folded her hands underneath her head, to find her staring intently at him, clearly anticipating his answer. Even the owl tattoo on her forearm seemed to be burning a hole in his head with its glare. 

“Same difference,” he shrugged, careful, “how’s the conference?”

“You’d know if you hadn’t lost your phone!” She teased, he could see her smile, “Ahsoka said you lost it?” He hadn’t. Right now, he could see the place on his desk where it was placed, glowing bright like a beacon. 

“Yeah, I’ll just do the Find My iPhone thing.”

“Well, when you do find it, there’s, I don’t know, ten  _ years _ worth of blackmail on Ben waiting for you,” and now he could see her walking over to one of the twin-set of beds with the borderline-uncomfortable sheets, her roommate on the other one with their headphones in and watching something on her computer. If he closes his eyes, the vision becomes sharper, and there’s comfort in the moment he realizes the shirt she’s wearing is one she’d ‘stolen’ from his closet, as if everything he owns isn’t already hers for the taking. 

“Oh?” He says, knowing she must be expecting the go-ahead to continue.

“Let’s just say truth or dare got  _ incredibly _ fun last night, and I never realized how good he would look as a drag queen.”

“I wish I was there,” he promises, swears, devotes, “it’s boring here without you.”

He hears a snort come from Ahsoka’s direction, the irony of it all clearly too much to contain.

“I’m sure that’s a lie,” Padme says knowingly, and if she didn’t sound so soft when she said it Anakin would be panicking that she was on to them. Then she sighs, as if someone said something she found to be annoying, and said, “I should get going.”

“You sure you can’t stay on for a few more minutes?” He could hear a distinct  _ smack _ and turned again to see Ahsoka’s hand rubbing her face. Not frustration, though. Exaggerated boredom. Lazy waves of energy rolling off of her. Time has cooled the heat. 

“No, I was just calling because I got freaked out,” Padme huffs an embarrassed laugh, “I was almost ready to Uber home, or something. I don’t know, just something about neither of you guys picking up the phone and a bad feeling had me worried, I guess. But if you guys are fine-”

“We are,” he says, maybe even believing it a bit more, “it’s fine. I love you.”

“I know,” she smiles into her phone, and Anakin is filled with nothing but warmth. He didn’t want to let this feeling go, though. Unlike the anger and frustration that had fueled his ability to regain control of his body in his confrontation with himself, this was a feeling he couldn’t imagine being rid of. “Call me when you find your phone!”

And with that, the call ended. 

He lowered the phone, looking over to where Ahsoka was still laying down, still staring at him, and for a second he was scared she was going to pick the same fight again. Had to strengthen his resolve to not budge on this. 

But, instead, she gives him a brief, soft look, before parroting with a mocking tone, “Morning,  _ gorgeous,” _ and he knows they’ll be just fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proud to say that the Google Doc that this is stored on has officially passed 100 pages, making it my longest story by over 10,000 words!


	16. The Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For tonight, though, they could relax. That’s what Ahsoka told herself, anyway. The dreary silence brought on by their finally-agreed-upon route was depressing, and the only way Ahsoka could solve it was through compromise. Sure, they wouldn’t get a rest of their lives, but they could have the weekend. 
> 
> Tonight. 
> 
> The next few hours, at least. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "What were we thinking?  
> Back in the beginning.  
> The beginning of the end. "
> 
> Chapter title from The Beginning of the End by Klergy x Valerie Broussard

Maybe it’s sentimentalism, maybe it’s just hearing him talk to Padme  _ like that, _ but something in Ahsoka shifts cosmically as she listens to Anakin so unashamedly make a complete fucking  _ fool _ of himself in front of her, all just to be his ridiculous, sappy self for his girlfriend. And there’s no better word for it than ridiculous, because it’s truly painful to listen to, and Ahsoka almost has to cover her ears to keep out the unbearable cheesiness.

But that’s just who he is, isn’t it? Some sap with a heart that’s simply too big to handle. 

It dawns on her, suddenly and cruelly, that she’d actually thought that he’d turned against her, against them. That for the first, and she hopes only, time since she’d known him, she hadn’t known with such a certain conviction that they were on the same team. Even in fights, even in times of stress, she had always been able to count on him. She should have known that no matter what some other him from some other world said, it wouldn’t change that simple fact. 

It’s shameful, really, to have to confront the fact that she had doubted that he’d ever have anything but the best intentions at heart. Maybe she thought he was being dumb and to open to the idea presented by someone she knew to be wrong, but when had Anakin ever done something specifically to hurt someone? When had she ever seen him take an action that wasn’t at least 80% motivated by the desire to help his friends?

Never. 

Never was the correct answer. 

So she would hear him out, she decided. Maybe she was in the wrong (just a little bit) and maybe he had been given some game-changing knowledge that she didn’t know. He hadn’t, because if he had he would’ve just come out and said it, but she would give him the chance to admit that for himself. 

“I get that he’s not good,” was what he chose to start with.  _ 6/10 for introduction _ , she thought,  _ with room for improvement.  _ “But I don’t think he’s all bad, either.”

It must have been painfully obvious that she didn’t like what he’d said, because the second he’d finished, he was already wincing at her facial expression and covering his ass like his life depended on it. 

“Ahsoka, I can’t explain all the stuff I’ve been seeing, and some of it  _ is _ really bad, but, like, then I get hit with these puzzle pieces that don’t fit in there. Like, it’ll go from dark Batcave-style castles to picnics in the field. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s more complicated than we gave him credit for.”

Ahsoka remained silent, mostly because she was afraid that if she started talking it would turn mean again. And that wasn’t helpful, right now. Ahsoka just wanted to get along. 

“When I was in there,” Anakin continued, looking at the carpeted floor, “he said he didn’t want to wake up. Just wanted us to keep living our lives. And I thought, you know, what if that wasn’t such a bad thing?”

It felt different to hear it out loud. All day, she’d been tormenting herself with the  _ what if _ of after they succeeded.  _ What if _ none of this was real and they just disappeared?  _ What if  _ they kept on existing, not knowing if what they’d done solved anything.  _ What if  _ they woke up and suddenly they were on opposite sides, hating each other, and this life wasn’t enough to change that?

The possibility of staying, continuing, living was so enticing. Getting to apply to colleges and become a person outside of the context of this town and see a world that was bigger than the 60-mile circle she’d lived in her whole life. It all sounded so good. 

But she knew it wasn’t real. 

She knew that all of the things she could ever hope to do here, all the changes to the world she was living in that she could ever hope to make, didn’t mean a damn thing. Whatever she did here would pale in comparison to the selfless thing that was giving up all of that to wake up Other-Anakin and get him to help Other-Ahsoka and make real change in a real world. If she couldn’t better someone’s life in a real way, she could at least make it so that others could. 

And looking at Anakin, he knew that too. He was just holding onto the strand of hope that maybe there was another way.

“You know we can’t do that,” she said solemnly, because it was the equivalent to prematurely reading their eulogies. 

He gave a sad nod, one of resignation and understanding. “Yeah, I do.”

* * *

For tonight, though, they could relax. That’s what Ahsoka told herself, anyway. The dreary silence brought on by their finally-agreed-upon route was depressing, and the only way Ahsoka could solve it was through compromise. Sure, they wouldn’t get a rest of their lives, but they could have the weekend. 

Tonight. 

The next few hours, at least. 

For that night, there were to be no more mentions of alternate realities or clocks ticking down on them or epic fights between them that seemed to span star systems. Strictly outlawed. They’d written it down, signed at the bottom and everything. 

Ahsoka rid her mind of the genuinely soul-crushing truth that she didn’t know what was going to happen next. Instead, she pulled her legs up onto the couch with her, the bowl of popcorn that had just come out of the microwave perched on her lap, and the cast of Riverdale left to do the thinking for her. 

Guilty pleasures were allowed for the end of the world. 

It was strangely easy to not be upset. It could just be that she was putting it off, doing all she could to not think about it right now, but for that brief moment of time the only thing that mattered to her was petty teen dramas and horrific acting contained inside the television. 

_ I wish this moment could last forever. _

The thought wasn’t hers, but it wasn’t an intrusion, like so many had been in the past few days. This wasn’t something that was forcing itself into her head, begging her to remember. This wasn’t some distant goddess that was rudely demanding her focus. This was a familiar voice, one she could have sworn she’d known all her life. 

She looked over at Anakin, who had a pint of ice cream in his lap and seemed to be too preoccupied in the overly complicated love triangles to take notice of what had just occurred. She thought about chalking it up to a fluke, some accidental notice, but recently too many things had been more mystical than she’d ever expected for her to just let it pass by so easily. 

She’d seen what he’d seen, felt what he’d felt but this was something more kind. Just a notice, no hidden meaning, no agenda of the universe behind it. Just a simple truth.

_ Me neither, Skyguy, _ and if he heard anything he made no indication, except for a small smile that she could’ve easily passed by. 

Earlier, she would have fought tooth and nail to dive into this. See what else they could do. 

But not tonight. 

Instead, she refocused on the television and let her worries slip away. 

* * *

3 episodes of Riverdale and 12 rounds of Mario Kart later, Ahsoka was lying on the floor of Anakin’s room, all tennis balls abandoned and popcorn eaten twice over. It was underhanded to herself, but she thought privately that if she could just have this one perfect evening and hold onto that memory tight, it would be enough to make the other-Ahsoka remember that she and Anakin were friends. 

It was weird, thinking back on it now, that at one point her biggest fear had been all of them leaving, and her being alone. Now, she’d seen second-hand that alone had hurt, but it had been her choice and been what was right. Back then, her universe was not as big as it was now. All she had to worry about was if she had a date for prom and what her SAT scores were going to be like. 

Now she was battling with a cosmic force and stood a chance of winning. 

People change. 

She looked up at Anakin, who was texting Ben because what did it even matter anymore, they were all going to be gone soon, and she found herself wistfully hoping that they didn’t change too much. 

When she slept that night, it was dreamless. 

* * *

The next day passed by in a blur for Anakin. After he dropped Ahsoka off at her house, lazily excusing it as a desire to be with family that they both knew was far deeper than that, he returned home. As he opened the door, the smell of eggs and bacon was far too welcoming, like someone had taken his senses and turned them up to 11. He thought absently that maybe this was Other-Anakin’s last-ditch efforts to coerce him into staying. 

Part of him wished it would work, but The Right Thing was being annoyingly, glaringly obvious today. 

Still, that didn’t stop him from entering into the kitchen and grabbing two plates for him and his mom. 

They ate in relative silence, just small comments here and there about  _ do you have any homework? _ and  _ how was your shift last night?  _ and  _ did you hear that Aayla from down the street got into Harvard?  _

Anakin was going to miss his mom. If he was being selfishly honest, probably more than he was going to miss anyone. 

_ At least you still have a mom. _

Anakin hated that he understood. He understood being willing to tear an old-world apart just for a chance to see her again. This was why he told himself that no matter what he and Ahsoka did, this world would still be standing. Shmi would get her next date night with Cliegg, and she’d get the promotion she wanted and maybe even the nice house on a beach she’d always planned on buying when Anakin moved out (he had a  _ thing _ about sand, sue him). Most importantly, she was going to get the life she deserved. 

_ You can’t stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting.  _

How he wished that weren’t true. 

There was something self-indulgent when, after they’d finished eating, he’d walked up to her and given her as big of a hug as he could. Maybe it was a little selfless, too. Maybe part of him hoped that the Other-Anakin, wherever he was watching from, could feel this love, this closure, and understand all the choices he was about to make. 

“Ani,” Shmi smiled once he’d stepped back, her hands still on his shoulders, “what was that for?”

“Nothing,” he smiled as she moved a hand to lay on his cheek in that motherly way she was perfect at, leaned into her touch, “Just wanted you to know how much I love you.”

* * *

After his mom forcibly checks his temperature for a fever three times because  _ you’re acting strange, Ani _ , he’s allowed to leave for the evening. Ben had called him up saying that the bus taking him and Padme back would get to the school around 9, and asking if Anakin and Ahsoka wanted to come hang out with them. 

Obviously, the answer was yes. 

When he’d picked up Ahsoka, she hadn’t mentioned any of their plans for the self-destruction of the world, and Anakin took that to mean that they would still be operating under their  _ this isn’t really happening, I am, in fact, a normal teenager _ mentality. Two would gladly play at this game. 

They ended up just going to the high school football field with armloads of junk-food and a pizza. Blankets and jackets were to be laid on the turf, phone flashlights facing the sky, and the four of them to laze about, laughing, sharing stories and gossip. 

“Ben made out with Satine!” Padme exclaimed the second she had climbed the fence surrounding the stadium (but what teenager hasn’t?) and had caught the array of candies Anakin had tossed over to her. Maybe he altered the trajectory of them in midair to make sure they landed in her hands. Who’s to say. 

“Shut up!” Ahsoka said as she landed silently next to Padme. Anakin had never seen someone come down from the fence without a thud. Maybe she’d done something to lighten her landing. He couldn’t blame her. 

“What happened to waiting ‘til marriage?” Anakin asked Ben, who had a sneakered foot in Anakin’s hands like they were cheerleaders about to do a stunt, trying as best they could to pass the pizza box to the girls without spilling the contents. In another timeline, if they’d ended up dragging Padme and Ben into all of this, Anakin supposed he could just float it over. It would make his life a lot easier, at least right now. 

“I was never waiting until marriage,  _ Anakin, _ ” Ben grumbled as Ahsoka finally got her hands on the other edge of the box and he let it go. Anakin knocked his head against Ben’s legs, indicating for him to hold himself up for a second while he got the soda bottles for Ben to pass over. 

“Could’ve fooled us!” Ahsoka crowed, jogging over to place the pizza and blankets she had slung over her shoulders on the plastic grass before returning to help again. 

“I’m sorry I’m not a hormonal gremlin like you are,” Ben said, taking the plastic bottles and setting a foot back in Anakin’s palm, leaning over the top of the fence again to drop them into Padme’s outstretched arms. 

_ Be mindful of your thoughts, Anakin, they betray you.  _

_ You turned her against me. _

Anakin shook the thoughts out of his head. Not for tonight. 

When he looked through the chain-link fence, Ahsoka was looking at him, wide-eyed and knowing. He simply gave her a laid back wink as if to say  _ we’re good, don’t worry. _

“I could drop you right now,” Anakin mused, wobbling his hand for emphasis and causing Ben to momentarily lose balance, “and you would fall on your ass and we would laugh and Padme would send a picture to Satine and she would laugh, too.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Ben challenged, looking down at Anakin with a threat in his eyes.

_ It’s over, Anakin. I have the high ground.  _

_ You underestimate my power! _

Anakin just moved Ben’s leg around again, a promise that  _ yes, I will try it and you’ll be upset at me when I do. _

Eventually, they all made it over the fence, the only thing getting dropped was the one bag of potato chips that Padme just barely missed. After Ben made his way over and Anakin followed, the four of them made their merry way to the plastic field, still teasing Ben just to see him get flustered. 

Anakin did his best to commit this moment to long term memory. Tried to hold on to it as best he could. Let the Other-Anakin up in the sky know this feeling. 

“Clovis was being a hard-ass all weekend, _of course,”_ Ben said, an hour and a whole pizza later, proudly enjoying the last slice that he’d won ‘fairly’ from Ahsoka in a rock-paper-scissors match, “wouldn’t stop trying to sneak out and meet up with girls from George Whittell High. Why don’t you all go slut-shame him, instead?”

“Clovis was there?” Anakin asked, his happy evening grinding to an abrupt halt. 

Fucking Clovis.  _ Rush _ Clovis, because apparently his parents hated him as much as Anakin did and wanted to name him the stupidest thing possible.  _ (Yes, _ Anakin  _ Skywalker _ probably had no grounds to make fun of someone for a dumb name. But, like, come  _ on. _ Rush Clovis?)

For an incredibly brief and incredibly upsetting month of the summer between sophomore and junior year, when Anakin was still a little too angry at the world and a little too 16-year-old-boy about everything, Padme and he had taken a break. During this period, Mr.  _ Rush fucking Clovis _ had wasted absolutely 0 time asking Padme to go with him to the movies. Daily. And not even something fun like an action film or a rom-com. Nosferatu. He wanted to take her on a date to see the black-and-white, anti-Semitic Dracula movie.  _ What an  _ **_asshole._ **

“Clovis is one of the best debaters we have on our team,” Padme reasoned, her shoulder pressed reassuringly against his, “and it doesn’t hurt that his big-shot accountant parents funded half of the trip for us.”

“Spoken like someone whose big-shot state senator parents didn’t fund the other half,” Ahsoka pointed out, a smug smile on her face as she tipped back the liter bottle of Sprite to take a drink. They’d forgotten cups. So what?

_ You’re making fun of me! _

_ Oh, no. I’d be too frightened to tease a senator. _

Padme just shrugged and ate another Cheeto. 

“Did he at least get caught being an ass-wipe?” Anakin asked, unashamed of the hopeful tone of your voice.

“You know, you’re going to be mad but I think you and him are more similar than you think. In some other lifetime, you guys might even be friends.” Padme said, her hand finding its way into his.

“Yeah, maybe, if Anakin hadn’t broken his nose on the first day of junior year,” Ahsoka laughed. 

_ You call this a diplomatic solution? _

_ I call it aggressive negotiations.  _

“He deserved it,” Anakin said as he grabbed the Sprite from Ahsoka, “I’d do it again if I could.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Padme knocked into his shoulder, “you’re too much of a softie now.”

“And who do I have to blame for that?”

_ Believe me, I wish I could wish my feelings away, but I can’t. _

“I’m gonna miss this next year,” Ben said out of the blue, uncharacteristic preemptive nostalgia coloring his voice, “you know, just all of us being together and joking. Next year’s gonna suck without you guys.”

“We’ll still see each other,” Padme promised, full of conviction like she was presenting a court case, “we’ll all be back for the major holidays, and we all have the capabilities to FaceTime and text. None of us are even going that far.”

Anakin was hit with an intense pang of guilt, one he could feel radiating off of Ahsoka as well, because, for all he had felt the very same just a week ago, he knew that there was a very high chance that there wasn’t going to be a next month, let alone a next year. 

No.  _ No.  _ Business as usual. Nothing would change. They’d be fine. 

“Tell me about it,” Ahsoka said, finally, “at least you guys will be out of here. I’ll still be stuck in Bum-fuck Nevada for a whole other year.” Anakin could see the sadness behind her eyes, feel that it wasn’t for what she was saying but was present nonetheless. 

_ Fuck that. _

“That was depressing as hell,” he bemoaned, moving to stand up and offering his hand to Padme so that she would do the same, “thanks for making us upset,  _ Ben.” _

Ben just rolled his eyes in a  _ what did I even do? _ way and followed Anakin and Padme’s lead. “I take it you’re going to give us an inspiring speech about how we’ll always be friends?”

“Hell no,” Anakin scoffed, though the heart of what Ben said was true, “I’m giving us a head start because I know Ahsoka’s the fastest one here and she’s  _ it.” _

With that, the three standing looked quickly at Ahsoka, who was still processing, and scattered in separate directions around the field, leaving her to scramble to her feet and hunt them down. 

* * *

When Anakin went to sleep that night, it wasn’t after hours of sad thoughts on how he’d probably never get that experience again. (He’d seen enough to know that in the other, possibly real-er world, he didn’t have Padme. Or Ben. Barely even Ahsoka. He couldn’t let this deter him.) 

Instead, as they’d all begun winding down and mutually decided it was time to head home, he’d gathered them for a picture, a self-timer one on Padme’s insistence.

There were now about 18 of these on his phone. 

Some were just regular pictures of friends, all of them with their arms around each others’ shoulders, smiling and laughing about something one of the others had said. Some were more posed, like the one of Padme pressing a kiss to Anakin’s cheek with Ahsoka pretending to hurl in the background while Ben had his nose pinched between his pointer finger and thumb. 

Anakin’s favorite, the one he’d immediately made his lock screen despite the fact that he didn’t expect to see it for long after, was simple. One taken right after they’d all laughed at something that someone said, taken two seconds after the height of the uproar, at just the right time to catch them all in a truly happy, calm moment. 

This picture said  _ I love them all _ in a way that he didn’t think he’d been able to in the other life he’d apparently lived. This one said  _ nothing has ever or could ever come between us.  _

When Anakin went to sleep, he sent this message to himself, hoping it would land. He tried to keep this one perfect night with him forever, closure for a life he himself hadn’t lived. 

And, somewhere not so far away, he could hear Ahsoka’s mind whispering the same things. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What if i admitted that I've watched every single episode of Riverdale 0.0


	17. with tears in my eyes, i begged me to stay. (you said, "hey, man, i love you but no fucking way")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they wake him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Twin Size Mattress by The Front Bottoms

At 10 PM the next night (Sunday, March 14th in the year 2020 A.D.) (3 days P.F.U.A.A.A.S.B.P.F.) (Post Fucking Up Ahsoka And Anakin’s Spring Break Plans Forever), Anakin picked Ahsoka up in his shitty minivan to go end the world. 

Save the world. 

For once, it was the same difference. 

In a way in which the symbolism was not lost on her, they decided to end it the place it began. Parking lot. Night. Shitty junk food. Stars. 

Funny how things go full circle like that. 

Ahsoka imagines this is how prisoners who are eating a  _ really  _ good final meal feel. Because, on one hand, she’s with her favorite person in what had once been her favorite place, and she could even pretend they were on their way to do her favorite thing. But on the other, the air still hung heavy around her, an unspoken reminder to cherish it while it lasts because it will be gone soon. 

She could see the same dark halo hanging on Anakin’s head. 

They decided before really getting into the hard and gritty of it all, they would have their own private pity party. A farewell to the world as they knew it. Parking lot. Night. Shitty junk food. Stars. 

“What do you think you’re going to miss most?” He asked eventually, when the Arizona cans were more empty than full and the peach ring bag was left barren save the crumbs of sugar caught in the corners. 

This was the first time in days that they’d actually acknowledged that they were going to miss out on anything. Ahsoka was grateful for that. She hoped she could at least keep the memories of the last few nights when all this was over. 

“My hair,” she nodded, only half kidding. When she looked over at him, at his bewildered face, she let out a guffaw at the disappointed reaction. “What? I’m not allowed to miss it?”

“It’s just not what I thought you would say,” he chuckled, taking another sip from the can. His third. They’d both maybe spent all their savings on tonight’s feast. 

“Why, what are you going to miss?” She rolled her eyes in anticipation for when he inevitably said  _ Padme _ with moony eyes and a dopey smile.

“My mom.” Was his immediate, unashamed response. 

Oh.  _ Oh. _

Ahsoka had always been on good terms with Dr. Koon, had loved their monthly out-of-town brunches, and had appreciated how earnest he was in everything he did. She respected both the fact that he was a pediatrician known for keeping even the rowdiest children tame during checkups and that he knew that this was never what she’d wanted for herself. But she didn’t think she had ever worshipped him the way Anakin had worshipped his mom. 

“That, and probably my hair, too, I guess,” he amended, staring off into the distance, “being able to breathe right. Not being so angry all the time.”

“Trust me, you’re plenty angry, now,” Ahsoka laughed softly, though it fell flat. When they went back to this other world ( _ if _ they went back, she reminded herself) she would have to adjust to being a bit taller and a bit buffer. He’d have to adjust to having no limbs. It was sad that even though they were in the same situation, they were by no means in the same boat. 

“Fuck this,” she announced, “what’s one thing you’re looking forward to?”

_ Please make this enough to keep us from having second thoughts. Let this be enough. _

“I’m excited to make sure he’s a good guy again,” Anakin was still looking to the horizon, the determination she knew he was brimming with spilling into his eyes, “Snips, I want to redeem him so fucking bad. I want to make it all right. I want to make up for all the garbage things he’s done and not be a coward about any of it.”

She grinned at that fire. 

“I want to change the fucking world,” she added, her own pride swelling at the thought of doing something so bold, “I want to win whatever war the two of them got themselves into.”

“Together,” he said, finally turning to look at her.

“Together.”

* * *

The last time Anakin had been in this parking lot and he felt the world stop, he’d told it to but hadn’t known it would work. This time, he had nothing but confidence. Maybe that should scare him more than it did.

“Ready, Skyguy?” Ahsoka asked, leaning back from her preparations. They were minimal, mostly just putting all of their trash in a paper bag and off to the side and smoothing out the blanket beneath them. Oh, and lighting a candle. An extremely $5 candle that had been a Christmas present from who knows how many years ago, with pink glitter and the manufactured smell of ‘Winter’, whatever that meant. 

Listen, they’d never done a seance before. Who knew what would actually work. 

“As I’ll ever be,” He nodded and silently asked the world to stop turning. 

The quiet came instantly, but what really got him was the wind. Last time, he’d been a little too preoccupied to take note of everything, but he vaguely remembered this feeling of stillness. More than gut instinct or the sight of nothing else moving, but the fact that he couldn’t feel any sort of breeze on his face was what really got to him. 

Even the freshly lit candle between them froze mid-flicker. A sign, if nothing else. 

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that,” Ahsoka shivered, despite the lack of any cool breezes. 

“I don’t think you’re going to need to,” he mumbled, “last hurrah, and everything.”

She quickly grabbed a hold of his hands, a reassurance and promise that no matter what they’re still together, and he looked into her wide eyes that were lit with a glimmer of hope. 

There was something distantly familiar about the whole set up. Maybe not the place or the world, but Anakin knew that they’d been in this type of similar situation before. Quiet, clinical rooms and seated across from each other, hoping something would happen. 

What he didn’t remember was the blatant display of friendship. 

The silly reminders of who they were found in crappy candles and Cheeto-dust fingers. 

The unashamed nature of their camaraderie. 

This was the time where one of them would crack a joke to relieve the tension, make it not quite so awkward, but both remained silent. 

He thinks absently that this would be the time where Other-Anakin would make a final effort to stop him; ponders that perhaps the lack of such an attempt is a sign that his counterpart is ready, too. That when he wakes up, it won’t be with reluctance.

With the subtlest of nods from Ahsoka, just enough to show certainty, something clicks and Anakin is sparked into motion.

Eyes closed, centered, the words come to him like a bolt of lighting.

_ I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. _

He doesn’t know what it means, only that they have meaning. Weight. These are important words. Scripture, mantra, holy. His chest aches at just the thought of them, like it might jump through his throat in order to spit them out. 

“I am one with the Force-”

“-and the Force is with me,” Ahsoka finishes for him, seemingly hit with the same memory he had been. 

He doesn't open his eyes, doesn’t need to. Around him, the world comes into a sharper focus. He can see, yes, but more importantly, he can  _ feel. _ The way he’d been able to feel Ahsoka without her being near, the way he’d been able to connect with the inanimate tennis ball and make it float, the way he’d known Padme’s every movement from a hundred miles away, and so,  _ so _ much more. 

There’s a fly, stopped in midair, that was gearing up to hopelessly ram itself into the light of the lamppost yet again.

There’s a weed, fighting its way through the crack in the asphalt near his car, beating the odds to simply be alive. 

There’s a million things happening at once, all held still by his insistence. 

There’s Ben.

There’s Padme.

There’s his mom.

There’s Ahsoka.

There’s Ahsoka. 

_ There’s Ahsoka. _

* * *

There’s herself. Her Other Self. The one she’d met once and been part of since. 

Outside of the all-black-everything that was the dreamscape she’d first seen her in, she fits in. Lightweight metal surrounds her, a robot on her arms, and grease smeared against her forehead. She looks in her element. She’s her future. 

In a heartbeat, Ahsoka knows her whole history, the one she’d only caught glimpses of up until this point. 

_ My name is Ahsoka Tano. _

_ Because of your training, I did survive.  _

_ You could have tried! _

_ I know.  _

_ Tell Anakin- _

_ I’m not leaving again. Not this time.  _

He’s her brother. He’s her teacher. He’s so much more. He’s responsible for everything in her life and every reason it went to shit. 

He could change the world with the snap of his fingers. 

* * *

“I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

* * *

Anakin’s killed people before. He’d seen it, but now he felt it. More importantly, he felt the reason. 

War. Revenge. Anger. Love. Duty. 

Make the universe better. 

Wasn’t he doing that now?

It didn’t work the first time. 

It will work now. It’s going to. It has to. 

* * *

Around them, the world is going haywire. Things go either too fast or not at all. Nobody notices. Business as usual only in halftime or breakneck speed.

There’s no reason for time to be linear anymore. Not when the only person it existed for is out of it completely. 

* * *

I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me.

* * *

Ahsoka Tano is stirred into action.

It’s happening  _ now. _ She has to get to him  _ now! _

She wished Morai had still been there, just to give her a heads up. This means she has to leave BD-9 to finish trying to start the engine again, lest it remains stagnant for eternity. 

_ Anakin could have fixed it,  _ she thinks bitterly. 

_ Anakin could just fix it, _ she realizes with a start. 

* * *

He can’t find her. He knows he’d been holding her hand, but all of a sudden she’s lost. He can’t find the ground beneath him, either. It feels like he’s floating weightlessly.

Maybe he just can’t feel his hands. Where  _ are _ his hands? The right one twitches. The left one doesn’t exist. 

He suddenly feels like he’s choking. Suddenly feels like that’s normal. 

Suddenly hears his head screaming. Suddenly expects as much.

He knows she’s there but he can’t feel her anymore. If he could just open his eyes, prove to himself she hasn’t left again, he can keep it up.

Why would she leave?

_ Why does everyone always leave? _

He knows why, has seen what he has become. He would leave too, if he could. 

_ You had the choice and you decided to come back, _ he thinks, but it’s not him. It’s Him.  _ You had your fucking chance and you blew it. How selfish. How selfish. How  _ **_selfish._ **

No. Nononononono.

Not selfish. This is not a selfish choice. There’s nothing in this for him. He’s a hero now. Not yet. Can be. He can change it all. He can rearrange the goddamn stars. 

_ You could have.  _

_ No. I will. _

* * *

Ahsoka is not herself. Is more herself than usual. 

Physically she’s there. 

She’s also somewhere else. 

She can see him. It feels like they’re worlds apart. 

She misses him; has known him all her life; only a short time, really; it could have been eons. She could raise a man from the dead, if she really wanted. She’s gonna. This is a threat. This is a promise.

If she can just reach out and grab ahold, even though she’s anchored to him already, she can tell him-

She has to tell him-

What did she have to tell him, again?

Oh, right.

* * *

With a sharp breath, Anakin Skywalker wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've realized I'm most happy with how these chapters turn out when they're just... fucking weird.
> 
> Anyway I'm emotionally stunted from s7e11 so I hope you enjoyed.


	18. The Final One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue.

When he opens his eyes, Ahsoka’s the first person he sees. She’s different now, even from the last time he’d seen her. Taller and stronger and more serene. She holds herself different, too. Less ashamed. 

For a second, he anticipates her not understanding. It had been his world, after all. What reason would there be for her to remember it?

He feels helpless, still in the bacta vat like some creature that they really should just put down, and she’s standing out there, the lightsabers she’d made and he’d rebuilt in her hands.

She’s going to kill him. That’s the only logical answer. She’d just wanted him to be awake to do it, so that he would know once and for all that every bridge he’d ever had is burnt. 

He takes as deep a breath as he can manage and prepares for the inevitable as she winds up an arm. In the blink of an eye, there’s a white slash and Anakin accepts the end. 

It doesn’t come. 

Instead, the machine around him starts beeping manically, the language of technology screaming  _ badbadbadwhywhywhystopstopstop! _

The pressure built inside the tube now has an escape, and it comes flooding out with enough force to break the rest of the glass, outside of just the little scratch she made. In all the ruckus, he ends up on the stone floor, struggling to catch his breath, propped up on his one good arm, and completely at her mercy. 

She bends down to his level, and he can now see the green Conover on her shoulder. The tattoo. The cardboard painting that hung in his car. The omen. The Daughter. 

“Hey, Skyguy,” she says, and it’s not the tone of what he remembers from this world. It’s small-town Ahsoka. It’s skate park and concert venue and parking lot Ahsoka mixed in. A combination he finds within himself, too, now. “It’s been a while.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be honest, I've been on an emotional roller with this fic. There were some days I couldn't stop writing and made chapter after chapter. There were some days that I wanted to delete the whole thing altogether. I've can go back to some chapters and love the way they turned out, but other ones I want to tear my eyes out while reading. 
> 
> I say that because, despite all of that, so many of you lovely people have the kindest words, even on chapters that I hated once posted. I wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart because I don't think that if it weren't for your lovely comments and kudos, I would've finished this. I'm trying not to sound like I'm fishing but, like, it really REALLY does mean the world to me. This is the first non-oneshot I've finished in a long time, and I just wanted to say thank you for helping me get here at all. 
> 
> I've already started another fic, which I'll hopefully have the first chapter of up soon (maybe by the 4th?? Doubtful, because I want to try to take my time with it a bit more, but a girl can dream) and it will also, of course, focus on Anakin and Ahsoka (but this time with more Padme and Ben content), because I have exactly one brand, apparently. 
> 
> In the meantime, thank you all again for sticking with this fic, and if you ever want to gush about my favorite Space Dumbasses, feel free to reach out on my Tumblr @ella-and-her-art !


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